Convocation
by Eirian1
Summary: Wraith Hives gather and threaten those under Atlantis' protection. Meanwhile, Beckett returns with a treatment to save Keller and discoveres the truth behind her condition.  When matters come to a head, who will be left standing? VS5 Episode 13: NC-17
1. Act 1

Author's disclaimer: I do not own _Stargate Atlantis_ and its associated characters. MGM does, for which, for the most part, they have my utmost respect. No copyright infringement is intended in writing these stories.

My deepest respect also goes to the talented actors that brought to life the characters we see in _Stargate Atlantis._ My portrayal of the characters here is based on my perception of the work of Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa, Rachel Luttrell, Paul McGillion, David Hewlett, Robert Picardo, Connor Trinneer and Christopher Heyerdahl. Without these people and those that came before them, there would have been no _Atlantis_ as we know it today.

With the exception of personal interpretation and expansions, extracts from existing episodes of the series remain the copyright of the story and teleplay writers: Joe Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright, Robert C Cooper, Martin Gero, Mary Kaiser, Damian Kindler, Peter DeLuise, Jill Blotevogel, Carl Binder, Kerry Glover, Sean Carley, Treena Hancock, Melissa R. Byer, Joe Flanigan, Don Whitehead, Holly Henderson, Ken Cuperus, Scott Nimerfro, Alan McCullough, Alex Levine, and David Schmidt.

Other assorted original characters (i.e. those that don't really appear in the show) are my own creation, and they, along with the original material presented here are © Eirian Phillips 2011.

Story is rated for mature readers, according to whatever rating system is adopted these days for Fan Fiction. It changes on a site by site basis… It was so much easier way back when…

There may be other virtual seasons of _SGA_ out there in cyberspace. Some may even be unofficially official. However, as a writer, I don't believe that this should discourage others from having their own ideas about things. Mine are presented here.

I can be reached by Email or PM. Feedback is always welcome and emails are usually answered.

Characters and events are purely fictitious, and any similarity to anyone living, transformed, dead, cloned or in any alternate universe or timeline is entirely coincidental.

**Stargate Atlantis**

Convocation

_…wave after wave, each mightier than the last…_

_"The technology of this city - this city that you now control - is far more powerful than that of the Wraith, yet we brought the Lanteans to their knees. Why?"_

_"Far greater numbers."_

_"Numbers that will be diminished by your retrovirus. Balance will be restored. I believe that is as much as either of us can ask for, don't you?"_

_The Queen and Sheppard, Allies_

**_Previously On Stargate Atlantis:_**

The commander snarled and pulled back, blade hilts unlocked and Todd stood for barely a moment, breathless with the ferocity of his anger, before moving in again. Dark steel flashed in the gathering gloom, as wordless now, the fight resumed. No tense circling, no tentative, testing strikes, blades clashed, spark spittle flying to light the dismal evening.

To the left, blades hissed through treachery and deceit, to the right through honour and tradition, but between them, Todd knew, the ringing of steel on companion steel was nothing but the voice of death, singing out her desire for the taste of freedom at the hands of the victor.

The sound was like a bell to him, ringing out the approach of the time when he would lay down the grasp he held on the strands of Wraith future; pass their care into more capable hands than his.

Approaching… but not yet now…

Slowly he raised the tip of his sword from the ground, and clasped it in a hand, sticky with his own blood. Like a lance he gripped the sword, flattening the other hand behind the pommel. He let out a terrible snarl and sprang at the Hive commander.

The sword struck, sure and true in the V made of the commander's arms as he cradled his injury close to his chest. Todd threw his weight behind it, along with the momentum of the charge, and snarled still more bitterly as the great sword slid deep into the other Wraith's chest.

Still he pushed, and as the spray of blood spread in the air behind the commander as he gasped a disbelieving breath, Todd stepped back, to allow the other Wraith's draining strength to bring him to his knees.

The Hive commander began to topple sideways, bloody rasping breath and spittle flying from his mouth as he tried to speak. He caught himself, pushing against the fall and with the other, plucked ineffectually, uselessly against the hilt of Todd's sword that slipped only slightly, as the point of the blade lodged against the ground behind the commander as he tipped backwards, pinning him in place.

Todd held his gaze, then slowly – stumbling – reached down to take the hilt of the commander's sword into his hands. He leaned against it, steadying himself, his own breath coming in short and painful gasps and allowed the soft rumble to gather in the back of his throat; words whispered behind the fury of the exploding star for which he was named.

"Die as Queenless as you lived."

* * *

><p>Footsteps halted behind him, and Malcolm took in a deep breath, preparing to turn to face the visiting commander.<p>

The sonorous ringing of metal falling to the chitinous deck of the observation room, punctuated by the rattle of Wraith weapons being readied in the hands of the guards, sent a terrible chill racing through his blood. When he finally turned it was far more slowly and carefully than he had intended.

There, in the middle of the space between him and where the Wraith scientist stood barely inside the door with, Malcolm noted, his own flank of drones and cloned-Wraith at his back, the Hive commander's sword rocked from side to side, not yet having come to rest after being thrown to the floor. The reason for that was immediately apparent and Malcolm stared in disbelief into the open, staring eyes of the commander's severed head.

The second in command took a deep breath. "Commander, I—" he began.

"Wait," Todd interrupted, and raised a hand to forestall any further utterance from the Hive Second. Then slowly, and deliberately he walked forward and with great distaste picked up the former commander's sword, and continued on toward the second in command. Once within reach he shifted the sword so that he held it by the cross and offered the hilt to the other Wraith. "I have no intention of commanding this Hive, and even less desire to do so."

"So what do you want?" the other Wraith asked, suspicion colouring his voice. Todd couldn't help but chuckle as he turned and, confident of his safety, stepped away, spreading his arms.

"It occurs to me that we are in a… unique position," the scientist turned to face him then, "you and I… to drive forward into a beneficial future for our two Hives… an… alliance, if you will."

"An alliance?" Malcolm tilted his head.

The scientist nodded. "Between your Hive and mine," he said. "You know full well that, sooner or later, there will be a Conclave. Factions will meet to appoint their Primaries, and the matter of Wraith future will be… very much on the agenda."

* * *

><p>"Leave us," Malcolm said softly as he entered the Queen's Private Chamber behind the Throne Room. He remained immobile while the Handmaidens, still present at the Queen's side, scurried from the room as if they could sense his intent. All but Jethera, who walked with a solemn, almost sad dignity and passing him, looked up to catch his eye. <em>My Lord Commander… <em>He fancied he could hear her thought.

"I did not summon you to my presence," the Queen said sharply, rising from her chaise long. The beads in her hair rattled together as she moved, like the warning song of some great snake.

"No, you did not," Malcolm answered. "But you need my presence all the same."

"You presume too much," the Queen snarled.

"And you presume not enough," he answered, matching her tone. He caught her wrist as she lashed out at him, and on her own momentum spun her in his arms, pinning her to his chest as he growled in her ear. "I am here to inform you that command of your Hive has passed to me… _my_ Queen."

_{surrender} {surrender} {surrender} {surrender} {surrender}_

_=never= =never= =never= =never= =never=_

_{you are mine} {mine} {mine} _

_=I belong to no male= =no male= =no male=_

Growling he wrapped her hair around his fist, spilling beads to roll unheeded over the floor of her chamber, as he drew her to him, turned them again, writhing in the struggle for supremacy in this mating fight until he had her pinned, and snarling in chorus with the Queen surged within her, deep and strong.

She stilled, head falling back then as he pulled away to claim her again, arched her back, and cried out as she met him, hip to hip and he began to move with strong deep strokes; showing no mercy, claiming her completely as their snarling cries punctuated the hissing of skin on skin.

* * *

><p>"I'm not that man, Ayatesha," he lifted his head from her shoulder then, but didn't pull away from her. He needed the familiarity, the comfort, but even then, tried to deny himself his needs. "Not who you think I am."<p>

"You carry with you all the memories and life experiences of your former self. The joys, the sorrows, the successes and the mistakes that you have always carried, they are still with you. You are as much Carson Beckett as you have ever been, you cannot deny yourself." She met his eyes then, "but you have a uniqueness, a gift that few of the rest of us have. You have stood within the howling wilderness, looked into the bleakness of the dark at the heart of all of us and you. Have. Survived."

Her eyes filled to overflowing as she spoke, and frowning he lifted a hand to brush away her tears, turned his head to kiss the scars at her wrist as her thumb shifted over his cheek.

"What did they do to you, Ayatesha?" he whispered.

_"There's been an accident," the leader snapped angrily. "Yung's been killed; I lost two of my men; the subject's dead. She's all we've got and we're running out of time. Now get her out of that chair!"_

_"Wait," she gasped, "please."_

_Her needs seemed to anger the leader, and he snatched her from the arms of the others, grasping the back of her neck to half drag, half carry her stumbling form to the wide trough at the side of the room, and push her head deep into the icy water which filled it. She struggled, completely ineffectually, and clawed weakly at his wrist, and gasped for air, coughing as he pulled her up, and turned her to face him. _

_"You better make the smart choice, Doctor, and start cooperating, or so help me, I'll make this," he gestured toward the chair in the middle of the room, "and what your daddy did to you when you were young, seem like a holiday picnic."_

_"I cannot… give," she wheezed, terrified but refusing to back down, "what is not possible even for God."_

* * *

><p>"Please, I want to know. What treatment regime?"<p>

"All right," she said, and pulled up a stool to sit down and speak with her. "Right now, we are treating you with a modified version of the serum that Carson created to prevent reversion after the administration of the humanising retrovirus. In addition to that you are receiving a low dose of the cell stabilising compound you created for him, and a broad spectrum antibiotic to stave off infection from the degrading cells."

"Is it working?" Keller asked.

"You tell me?" she countered. "How do you feel?"

"Like hell," Jennifer confessed, with a weak, apologetic smile.

"Then I would say that… for the time being, we have achieved _some_ success in keeping you stable," she said, not without irony, and brushed her fingertips against Keller's cheek. "I cannot promise you how long this will last."

Keller sighed. "It's all right," she said. "It's not your fault."

"It is not yours either, Jennifer. No matter what you might think," she leaned closer to the woman as she spoke. "Your genetic predisposition—"

"This wouldn't have happened if I'd not slept with Todd," Keller interrupted. "I was… Ayatesha, was I _insane_ or what? I saw – I knew there was genetic variance in my DNA."

"Broken eggs, Jennifer," Ayatesha ran her fingers through Keller's hair, trying to soothe the other woman's agitation. At the same time she fought to keep her own expression neutral as she added, "There is nothing we can do about the past… only find a way to live in the present."

"You don't believe that," Keller accused softly.

Haddad sighed, and eventually shook her head. She swallowed and then looked up to meet Keller's eyes.

"Jennifer, you are young and strong. You _will_ survive." _Though you may wish that you did not._

* * *

><p>Suddenly Lorne grasped Ayatesha's wrist, spun her round to face him and in the same moment grabbed the sleeve of the arm he held and pulled up the fabric to expose the scars on her skin. She tried to pull away, but he held her too strongly and in a single motion ripped the sleeve from wrist to shoulder, then turned her arm to expose the surgical scar on her inner bicep. Already the skin around the scar was discoloured – mottled, the spreading capillaries dark.<p>

* * *

><p>"Oh, and I almost forgot to ask," Varnerin came to a halt in front of her. "How are <em>you<em> feeling, lately?"

She frowned at him, her eyes narrowing, uncertain whether she should answer or simply challenge him again. The hairs on the back of her neck stood as though to the touch of a hand as warning pressed through her.

"I—" she said, faltering, confused.

"Well, since the end of your treatment," he said faux-kindly. "Your… cancer?"

"In remission," she said quickly, tightening her right hand into a fist and added quickly, "Insha'Allah."

* * *

><p>"Does helping Doctor Keller make you feel… vindicated?" Lorne asked, shaking her arm as if to hold it out to her attention - shaking <em>her<em>. "Restore your faith in _humanity_?"

"Evan, stop it!" she said, her voice ardent; afraid. She pushed at him, and he let her go so suddenly that she stumbled backwards. "You don't know what you're—"

"Don't I?" he asked, holding up the slim silver cylinder he had taken from her pocket. "How long has it been, Ayatesha?" he tilted his head, regarding her as he moved closer. This time she backed away, turning to keep him in front of her. "Twelve hours? Twenty-four?"

She shook her head, grasping the bars with both hands as she backed up against them.

"Seventy-two hours," she turned her head away and looked up. "I had to be sure, and you wouldn't answer my questions."

"You never gave me the chance," he hissed, and surprisingly gently, took her arm from the bars, and uncapping the cylinder, pressed it to her skin, against one of her engorged veins. She pulled against his hold as he administered the medicine, his voice heavy as he uttered the single word order, "Don't."

"I just want to know where to find…" her throat constricted and it became difficult for her to speak, before the burning began to spread, and she forced herself to finish, "…Carson…"

Lorne drew her head against his chest, cradled the back of it in the warmth of his hand, and wrapped his other arm around her waist supportively, holding her close as the trembling in her limbs increased.

"He's. Safe," he told her, each word deliberate, and he lowered himself down with her as her legs refused to support her any more, even as she fought. Lorne's voice came from far away. "Easy… easy… don't fight it."

* * *

><p>"You are lying," she accused. "This is not about Doctor Keller. Ever since you came to Atlantis you have had your own agenda. Everyone knows it. You have a purpose here beyond… anything that might be your remit from the IOA, and I am telling you now – you will <em>not<em> use me to further it."

"Be careful, Doctor," he said, the calm in his voice belying the shocked expression still present on his face. "Your claws are showing."

"I _know_ you – men of your kind," she twisted her face into an ugly visage of disgust and contempt. "The destination all important, little care for those you must tread upon along the way. Perhaps I should go to Richard Woolsey, tell him of this little _meeting_… see what happens. I do not think he would be pleased to hear of it, no matter _what_ he might think of me personally."

His hand flashed forward and grasped the knot of her hair, shrouded by the head covering she wore, and pulled back her head as he leaned toward her, not stopping until his face was inches from her own.

"Don't be a fool, Ayatesha," he growled, his breath rank. "I could break you."

"I. Do. Not. Think so," she whispered into his face. "_Real_ men… have tried, and with greater leverage." She forced herself to keep her head upright, her eyes locked with his, against the instinct to tilt it even slightly to the side. "And I did not bow to them either."

* * *

><p>"This is hybrid DNA," he said when he could finally catch his breath. "Natural hybrid DNA."<p>

Michael merely nodded in confirmation, only speaking after several minutes; several _long_ minutes in which Carson had moved closer to the workstation and without invitation, or hesitation, began manipulating the view – programming and running a number of short simulations.

"Several generations along from the point of successful hybridisation, with reproduction only along the human chromosomal pathway," Michael confirmed. "Yet maintaining the functional Chimera Radical, the same radical that you and I have both identified in the genetic sample you provided from Doctor Keller."

"Michael..." Beckett whispered, his blood chilling to match the ambient cold of the laboratory.

"Evolution," Michael answered. "The one thing the Alterans did not count upon."

"Alte—you mean the Ancients?"

"I mean, Doctor, that even the most hidden and insidious failsafe mechanisms possess an inbuilt work-around and with the correct knowledge and application of carefully nurtured science—"

"My God, Michael," Beckett gasped as the realisation occurred that Michael was not only talking about the past. "What have you done?"

* * *

><p>She barely touched the control station, but the overhead light illuminated the platform and the viewing screen began to display a series of scrolling characters. She pulled back her hand, afraid, a creeping unease rising up her spine, and turning, stepped away.<p>

She stepped almost directly into Michael, and gasped softly; startled.

"What is it that you wish to know?" he asked quietly, reaching to steady her, the strength of his hand a comfort to her, calming as he cupped her forearm.

"I wanted to find you," she told him, swallowing down her unsteady breathing, and glancing uncomfortably at the control station as though it had somehow offended her.

"You do not need the control station for that," he said.

_-you have only to reach out- -reach out- -reach out- -reach out- -reach out-_

…_Michael…_

"I am here, Teyla," he answered. "What is it that you need?"

"I have been experiencing some… difficulties," she confessed.

…_I am afraid…_

_-Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla-_

"This is why you have been so concerned," she as much stated as asked.

"Yes," he answered.

She watched him for a moment, pieces falling into place like the tumbling characters from the control station's monitor reflected in the gold of his eyes; tumbling like snowflakes into the rekindled memory of the place, the sensation they had shared – soft white crystals upon the fluid darkness that burst into flames around them.

Michael smiled softly, and gently, almost tenderly cupped her cheek in his hand. She leaned into the touch, her eyes filling with tears as she closed them and turned her lips to kiss his palm.

"It will, of necessity, mean that there will be some small… change in plan, but," Michael swallowed, and she opened her eyes again to find him looking at her in deep, but concerned devotion. "Nothing we can't handle," he finished softly.

* * *

><p><em>"Hear me, Commander, for there is not time to speak of what you must hear. You are in grave danger here – you and all Wraith. Save us. Keep us from the blasphemy wrought on us in this act. Those which develop here can bring only pain and death. Theirs is the way of war that will come after. Nothing good can come of this."<em>

"She told you this?" the Red Queen said at last.

"Showed me… My Matron," he answered, his voice almost breaking with the effort of it. "Would you have me act? The Ancient One's suggestion was clear. That one's offspring cannot be allowed to—"

"_I_ will decide what is to be done!" she hissed, her feeding hand coming to a trembling halt mere inches from his already aching chest. His downturned, obedient gaze noted that her fingers trembled. She hissed softly, and that trembling eased as the Red Queen relaxed. "If I had wished for you to destroy that Queen's young, I would have sent you with an army to take the facility for _our_ Hive."

"Of course, my Queen," he answered. "Forgive me, I—"

His words became a cry as the Queen's feeding hand descended faster than a whip and latched on just as swiftly. Molten fire flowed into him, his head spun faster and then settled into an almost peaceful bliss as his Matron Queen strengthened him – gave him life… then lowered her head until they touched brow to brow.

"Now, my son," she whispered as she withdrew the Gift, "We will allow these little creatures to mature. There are far more important matters for us to attend to than the errant actions of a single, lesser Queen."

* * *

><p>"<em>Why do you serve<em>? The One asked the others, for She had seen in the fullness of the time, of which the Eleven had been completely unaware," the Sentinel began to speak, her melodic voice punctuated by the soft clicks of her tongue against the inside of her mouth. "That for each new light that came, full half of the Parmhunii had faded into darkness to be replaced by their progeny while the mirrors of their yearning slept…"

"But the One had no mirror save herself and so had seen," the commander quoted, losing patience, "Why do you tell me infants' tales?"

"Have you stopped to consider what it means, Commander," she asked, breaking off from her telling. "To consider the question and what it means?"

"It means nothing," he snapped. "Myth… that is all."

"For one of such a line," she spat, "you understand so little of your heritage."

* * *

><p>"We cannot hide behind a lie," Todd hissed into the morning air, speaking as much to strengthen his own resolve as for any other reason. Such was the true abomination of the construct that his oldest rival had made of himself in the wake of what the humans of Atlantis had done to him: that he knew the Wraith Queens better than they knew themselves, and manipulated them just as freely as his contempt ran deep. Thus had the war begun, and what the one the humans called <em>Michael<em> had started, _he_ would end… in blood and death, yes, but ultimately in the genesis of a new Wraith era.

The Pegasus Galaxy _would_ be Wraith once more.

_"Operation 'This Will Most Likely End Badly' is a go."_

_Sheppard, No Man's Land_

**Act 1**

The clouds that drifted overhead smudged only lightly across the cobalt sky, like the tufts at the edges of a rabbit's tail. They filled Ronon with an almost forgotten sense of peace; a tranquillity that soothed the hurt of the past few months, at least a little.

Today, a little was enough.

"It is rare we have days like this so early in springtime."

He glanced at Raisa as she spoke. There was a smile in her voice and it was matched by the one on her face. It warmed him.

"Perhaps it means you'll be in for a good growing season," he answered.

"It would be nice," Raisa said, shifting the empty basket from the crook of one elbow to the other. "With a good growing season perhaps I'll be able to afford to keep the kid that's coming."

"That reminds me," he said lightly, "if we find some nails at market, I can fix the pen for you. It won't be perfect, but at least it'll hold—"

"I can't ask you to do that," she interrupted him lightly as they reached the first of the houses at the edge of the market town. She stopped walking and he stopped with her. She put a hand onto his arm.

"You didn't," he said shrugging slightly, "and it's no big deal anyways."

It was the least he could do for her, though he didn't want to phrase it that way. Putting it that way made it seem like he owed her something, and he didn't feel that. He—

"Mamma! Ronon! Look, flowers."

Chaya's young squeal of excitement interrupted his struggling thoughts and in the next moment, as the girl ran to them both and leaped into the air, he caught her and swung her up onto his hip.

Chaya wrapped her arms as far around his shoulders as she could reach and her legs around his waist, and for a moment pressed her cheek to his as she said in the same excited tone:

"Flowers for spring!"

Raisa caught his eye. Her expression was one of worry and she twitched toward him as if to take Chaya from his arms.

"Chaya—" she started.

"She's all right," he said. _I'm all right_ his expression added, and it was the truth. Though not yet at full strength, his wound was well enough healed that the weight of the sparrow-like girl in his arms was barely noticeable. He smiled at Chaya and pressing his forehead to hers, added confidentially, "maybe we should find some at market for your mamma, right?"

"Right," Chaya grinned and snuggled him again.

It was a painful warmth that flooded Ronon for a moment and he closed his eyes. When Raisa said his name softly, he opened them again into her blushing face, but he noted she was smiling, and when he offered, she slipped her arm through his without hesitation.

* * *

><p>Sheppard breathed a heavy sigh as he stepped from the event horizon into the organised chaos of the Gate Room. For days now they had been gating back and forth between Atlantis and the planet where the <em>Daedalus<em> went down. In the weeks since that had happened he had defied medical orders in order to join the teams bringing back vital and sensitive equipment and supplies. He felt it was his responsibility. If he'd been able to set _Daedalus_ down more safely they wouldn't be in this position.

With another sigh he made his way toward the Gate Room steps, weaving in and out of boxes that they still hadn't processed. He couldn't help but compare the city's Gate Room to a Good Will store in tax season.

He frowned as he spotted Zelenka. The scientist had reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the Control Room, which was where Sheppard thought he would have been by now, helping McKay to sort through the telemetry they'd managed to download from the _Daedalus'_ systems before they fried in the crash. Instead he was speaking rapidly, and clearly irritated, to a man with a clipboard that was directing a small group of orderlies who were engaged in moving some of the boxes onto carts.

"Hey Radek," he called as he neared the man. "Is there a problem? I would have thought you would have gotten all this sorted by now."

Breaking off his conversation with the quartermaster, Zelenka turned his way and Sheppard saw he was even more irritated than he'd first believed.

"Well, colonel," Zelenka began, and quickly pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, "Ordinarily, yes, I would have if it were just a matter of finding storage space to accommodate the equipment, but," he paused, breaking off to berate a group of porters who were carelessly hauling boxes without the aid of a dolly truck, before turning back to Sheppard to continue, "but as you know, some of the equipment is extremely sensitive, and having to split my time between organising this, and working to decode the sensor data from the Daedalus—"

"I thought McKay was on that," Sheppard said with a frown.

"Yes, well…" Zelenka matched his frown, and cleared his throat.

"Where _is_ McKay," Sheppard said as he realised the absence of McKay's dulcet tones, which ordinarily would have been drifting down in a steady trickle of complaints from the Control Room.

"In the infirmary."

"What?" Sheppard's frown deepened, then his brows shot up in incredulity as the calculation of the number of days that had passed since they arrived back in the city finished computing in his own less than up to par brain. "Still?"

"Still," Zelenka confirmed and his tone bordered strongly on the disparaging side of mild. "I rather think he's enjoying the attention and the blue jello just a little too much. I realise a broken wrist is painful but—"

"Leave it with me, Radek," Sheppard said darkly, and dropped a hand on Zelenka's shoulder for a moment before he started to walk away. Then raising his voice for the benefit of the quartermaster and his orderlies, added, "And get the Gate Room cleared! There's no telling when we may need to bring a Jumper down here!"

* * *

><p>Chaya tugged at Ronon's hand and he glanced at her. Her attention was obviously captured by something across the market square. Ronon peered that way, maintaining the light hold he had on her hand, not wanting to lose the child in the busy crowd while her mother bartered for the goods she needed.<p>

In a tall basket several small, furry creatures – some kind of feline by his guess – squirmed and mewled hungrily. It was to these that Chaya was so drawn.

"It's all right, Ronon," Raisa's voice made him jump, coming unexpectedly as it did. "So long as you stay near the kitlings, Chaya. Then we'll know where to find you when we're done."

"I will, Mamma," Chaya laughed happily, and freeing herself from Ronon's grasp, skipped over to kneel by the basket, dipping her hand inside to play with the animals.

For a while he watched, captured suddenly by the notion that a girl like that should have a pet of her own, before he caught Raisa struggling with the basket out of the corner of his eye.

"Let me," he said, and took it from her hands before she could protest.

"She is quite taken with you," Raisa said, beginning to walk at his side toward another market stall. "It will be a wrench for her when—"

"About that," Ronon said, the words tumbling from his lips before he could silence himself. "I was thinking—"

The sound and the cry reached him at the same time. The nasal whine resonated within the vowel sound of the single word that was cried in warning across the crowded market place and was somehow amplified by the accompanying angry buzz.

"WRAITH!"

The Darts screamed almost vertically out of a sky that had begun darkening with the boil of unnatural clouds – swarming and heading toward the crowded space; levelling into wing formations that loomed ever nearer as the panic began below.

As the lead Dart turned and opened fire, Ronon realised with mounting horror that its trajectory would bring it in directly over the stall in front of which Chaya's innocent play with the kitlings was, as yet, undisturbed. Even as he thought it, the reality of the moment reached the girl. The noise and heat and chaos thrust upon her, Chaya jerked her head up, and cried out in fear.

The Darts followed standard Wraith protocol for a cull, the lead Dart in each triplet formation fired its blasters, taking down buildings and other structures that could provide shelter from the culling beams that the others would deploy.

Great smoking divots appeared in the open ground. Old, dry grasses flared like tinder to brief fires. Clods of earth flew and the outlying stalls of the market shattered into a burning mass of deadly splinters to litter the air with peril… all in a single second.

"Chaya, run!" Ronon yelled above the impossible din, and pointed urgently the direction she should take even as he started her way. Caught in the grip of her fear, however, the girl stood looking first one way, and then the other as if confused, as if unable to comprehend his simple instruction. He drew his blaster and took another step as he called out again, "Run!"

A second wing of Darts began its decent, its path intersecting that of the first, and then a third, all flying criss-cross patterns over the frenzied market place, a sickening whine that was accompanied by the almost melodic buzz of the culling beams.

"Chaya!"

Beside Ronon, Raisa screamed her daughter's name. The first of the Darts was almost on top of the child, destroying everything in its path and heedless of the other Darts, Raisa began, first with hesitant, dodging steps to gather herself, ready to sprint to her daughter's aid.

For Ronon, time slowed as the terrible realisations hit home, one after the other. The fire and smoke – the shimmering in the air that had nothing to do with the heat, almost directly in front of Raisa as she moved.

"Chaya, run!" he yelled one last time as he lunged, arm outstretched, trying to reach Raisa and draw her back from the edge of the wavering threshold in the air. "Raisa, no!"

His fingertips brushed against the cloth at the back of her sleeve, and then she was gone, swept up into the belly of the Dart that powered away from the ineffectual shots he fired its way, gasping, "Raisa…"

Then Chaya screamed, and all the world erupted in heat and light and the percussive kiss of wood and earth and stone.

* * *

><p>Ayatesha closed the door to the office – Carson's office – she reminded herself, and leaned against it, allowing her a moment to breathe. Her head ached and everything felt stale and sullied. She longed for the end of her duty shift; to return to her quarters and take a long, hot shower.<p>

Run ragged as she was, as they all were since the survivors from the Daedalus had been brought back to Atlantis, she'd barely had a moment to herself in more days than she could remember.

She glanced around, then took a moment to pull the covering from her head, digging her fingers through her still-tight braids to try and ease her scalp. She readjusted the bobby pins to fasten back the escaped, unruly wisps of fine hair away from her forehead.

"Doctor Haddad?" Marie's voice sounded through the door.

"Just a minute," she swallowed down her frantic heartbeat and pulled the covering over her head again hurriedly, trying to sound normal as she asked, "Is there a problem?"

"Not a problem, no," Marie answered as Ayatesha opened the door and stepped back into the infirmary. "Just time for rounds – and Doctor McKay is complaining again."

Ayatesha frowned.

"He is still here?" she asked. "I thought we had discharged him once."

"We had," Marie said with a nod, as she handed her a stack of patient files. McKay's notes were uppermost. "Then two nights ago he managed to convince Doctor Murrow to readmit him."

"On what grounds?" Ayatesha flipped open the file folder and skimmed Murrow's clinical report, and after reading she let out a colourful string of mixed Arabic and English invectives.

"The little weasel," she snapped afterwards, and changed her course to bring her across the infirmary toward McKay's bed. "I will show _him_."

"About time," McKay said by way of greeting as she stepped up beside his bed. "What does it take to get—hey!"

She reached out and without a word plucked the dish of jello from McKay's hand, turning to pass it to Marie, and still with his notes open, instructed, "Nil by mouth from now on. If he is still having so much trouble with the fracture it's likely we'll have to go in and see what the trouble is."

"Go in?" McKay aped, looking between her and Marie, "as in… operate?"

"As in operate, Doctor," Ayatesha confirmed, "and for that we need to be sure that—"

"McKay!"

A sharp retort from the infirmary doorway interrupted, and lifting her head from where she had fixed the scientist with as fierce a stare as she could muster, she saw an equally unhappy looking Colonel Sheppard crossing the room toward the two of them.

"McKay, what the hell are you doing here?" Sheppard asked.

"Ask Doctor Huddid, or Hubab or… whatever her name is," McKay answered, gesturing with the wrist that was cradled in the hard cast toward Ayatesha.

"Doc?" Sheppard came to a halt on the other side of the bed.

"I am sorry, Colonel," she answered, "but I cannot discuss the treatment of other patients with non-family members, I—"

"She's talking about operating, Sheppard," McKay interrupted, and Ayatesha noted that he was scooting slightly toward the other man. "I only came in here to get some pain relief and—"

"And Doctor Murrow's clinical opinion is that there may be some deep underlying problem as to why the pain has increased rather than being managed by your current medication," Ayatesha interrupted, flicking her eyes meaningfully Sheppard's way. "I would not want you to lose the use of your fingers because we did not—"

"Lose the use of my—" McKay stuttered, "Sheppard, what is she talking about?"

Ayatesha looked over at Colonel Sheppard and was relieved to see a spark of understanding dawning in his eyes. The Air Force officer reached out and put a gentle but restraining hand onto McKay's shoulder as he tried to scoot even further away from her.

"You know what, McKay," Sheppard said. "Maybe the Doc is right. Maybe she ought to go in there, take a look; see what's going on."

"I can schedule the surgery for later this evening," Ayatesha looked at the watch pinned to the front of her clinical coat. "That should be enough time to—"

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," McKay fired the words like rapid bullets in her direction. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. Really, it feels a lot better already, see?" he moved his fingers quickly to demonstrate his wellness. "I'm sure it's just bruising. Ibuprofen… that's what I need, I—"

"Doctor McKay, it would be neglectful of me if I allowed you to leave without even any kind of examination, I—" Ayatesha protested smoothly.

"No, really," he said, "I'm fine. I'll sign anything you need, just—"

"McKay," Sheppard's lazy drawl, with just enough hint of a bite to cut in on the edge of her sarcasm-tinted battlefield, interrupted McKay's nervous tirade. "You're wasting time. Zelenka needs you in the Control Room. There's a ton of data to examine and these people are up to their eyeballs with folk who are _really_ sick. So either shape up and ship out, or let the doctor do her job and find out what the hell is wrong with you."

"I'll… be…" McKay gave Ayatesha a weak smile, "…going to the Control Room now."

She tipped her head slightly and raised an eyebrow, watching as he scrambled from the bed and put Sheppard between the two of them as though she were threatening him with some kind of loaded weapon.

"If you wish, Doctor," she said lightly. "But do come back if it gives you any more trouble. I will keep a spot open for you in the OR."

Had she not been so annoyed, Ayatesha would have smiled as McKay nodded and hurried out of the door behind the colonel without so much as looking back. Instead she nodded to Sheppard as he offered a quiet apology for the scientist wasting their time.

* * *

><p>It took a moment for Ronon to realise that the ringing in his ears had cleared as he straightened up, ignoring his pain, because a high pitched wail continued unabated.<p>

Throwing the debris from his back, he rolled, and then climbed to his feet, gripping tightly to his blaster as he peered through the smoke to look in horror at the devastation that was all that was left of the market place.

Figures moved through the smoke. Their motion was too slow and methodical to be the panicked villagers. A fearful cry from his left was cut off by a chillingly familiar snarl, and as the drifting smoke cleared in the bitter breeze that now blew through the town square, he caught sight of the ashen-green skin of an outstretched hand, clasped deeply on the chest of a dying Laquoian native. He raised his blaster, too late to save the man, but neither would that Wraith live to take his fill. The red line of his blaster's energy burrowed through the smoke – his aim true – and the Wraith fell.

The smoke-obscured figures turned his way almost in unison, snarls carrying in the eerie atmosphere, a silence disturbed only by the now weakening wail. His eyes stung and the tainted air bit at the back of his throat, but still he turned one way and another, guided by sound when he could not see; his blaster singing out death into the ruined morning.

"Mam-ma!" the wail strengthened again, fear running through the note of pain in it and debris rattled as though being thrown aside.

"Chaya?" he called out, coughing on the end of the word, until he was hoarse with it, but she didn't answer him. "Chaya, talk to me!"

"Ronon!" the cry came at last, weakly out of the centre of the rattling debris, and rather than calm his frantic heart, it began to beat so quickly in his chest that he thought it might burst.

He shook his head to try and think clearly, shake away the instinct to run, and peered through the dust that had gathered in the pockets of fresher air to where he had last seen her; to where there were splashes of blood on the stones and the smouldering ruins of a basket over which a bulky, dark figure stooped.

Chaya screamed again, panicked this time. "No… let me go!"

"Take your stinking hand offa her!" Ronon snarled, raising his blaster in menace as the faced Wraith turned his way, almost cradling the struggling child against his body and teasing at her chest with the brush of his feeding hand. The movement drew a throaty growl from the scorched and bloodied kitling that Chaya held tightly in her fisted hands.

"I do not think so," the Wraith hissed, tilting his head and repeating the gesture over the stricken child's form. "She belongs to my Hive now."

"No," Ronon said, and blew a sharp breath down his nose to punctuate his word. He shifted his thumb over the side of his blaster as he resettled his grip on the weapon.

"No?" the Wraith mocked, "What are you going to do, Human… without hurting the child?"

"It's not _about_ what I'm gonna do," Ronon growled.

"No?" the Wraith echoed, passing another touch over Chaya, that made her whimper in fear.

"No," Ronon confirmed. "It's about what _you're_ gonna do."

"And what might that be?" the Wraith asked.

Ronon pulled the trigger, praying as he never had before that Chaya's obvious injuries hadn't weakened her too much for her to withstand the stun blast that took both her and the Wraith.

He didn't wait. He closed in and snatched Chaya's limp form from the falling Wraith to toss her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.

His thumb worked once more against the switch on the side of his blaster as the Wraith, on his knees, began to recover himself. He didn't give him the time.

"Die, motherfucker!" he said, and pulled the trigger again.

* * *

><p>He leaned over and flicked deliberately between one camera and the next, trying to get a better angle on the laptop screen at which the doctor worked. Frustrated, he tried again, managing only to get the right hand edge of the screen into shot, and then it was out of focus because of the angle.<p>

"Professor," the security officer at the surveillance station looked round at him, "perhaps if you told us exactly what you were looking for…?"

He shook his head.

"It isn't a case of looking _for_ anything, specifically," he answered, irritated both at being questioned as well as not being able to see anything of the doctor's work. "Though you might tell me if she's been anywhere near the brig since the last time."

"No, Sir," the SO answered. "With all of the injured being ferried back from the _Daedalus_, and Doctor Beckett still offworld, she's been kept busy in the infirmary."

"I see," Varnerin growled, then added, "And the prisoner? Have you been able to get anything out of _him_ in respect of what passed between them?"

"No, Sir," the SO shook his head again. "Major Lorne—"

"Major Lorne is dead, lieutenant. That creature in the brig is not the major and you'd do well to remember that," Varnerin snapped.

"Yes, Sir," the SO answered, "Sorry, Sir."

"So it said nothing then?" Varnerin asked, turning his eyes back to the screens showing all angles of Doctor Haddad's quarters. She remained unmoving before the computer screen, though Varnerin could easily see the fatigue in her posture, and in the way she leaned her head against her hands as she read the contents of the screen. Contents he couldn't see, which irritated him greatly.

"Major Lo—the prisoner didn't say anything useful, Sir," the SO answered, "at least not to us, but then he rarely does. He was questioned several times about his involvement with Doctor Haddad, and all he would say is one word… just one word."

"And that was?"

"Compassion, Sir."

"Compassion?"

"Yes, Sir," the SO confirmed, as Varnerin peered closer to the screen at the very same moment that Haddad turned her head and looked up, as if she knew she were being watched. With a frown, Varnerin repeated the word as if it were an unfamiliar, alien concept.

"Compassion."

* * *

><p>Michael let out a long, slow breath, almost a hiss and slowly curled the fingers of both hands into fists against the top of the workbench. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beckett edge away as much as the equipment would allow.<p>

He knew it was fatigue that drove his mood towards anger. He recognised, too, that there was no need for it. They had made much progress in the last several days. Already they had been able to develop a gene therapy that when programmed into a sympathetic retrovirus had enabled stabilisation of the hybridising cells. Once the process was complete it would allow for the continued development of the necessary systemic compromises. The cross transcription would still prove problematical, but symptoms could far easier be treated than the total breakdown of all of the host's bodily functions.

He sighed again, pushing away an answering visceral response to his own dispassionate assessment of the situation. He had walked this path in his research _countless_ times, but had never imagined he could approach such a fundamental alteration of natural law so quickly, or with such high stakes… such risk… such _cost._

He growled audibly as the thoughts cascade like Wraith text across a view screen through his mind and Beckett look up sharply from the microscope.

"Michael?"

"Does it work?" he demanded, refusing to be drawn into the unwanted conversation.

"Aye, it does," Beckett answered, stepping back from the microscope and gesturing toward it. "Take a look for yourself. The degradation in the accelerated sample is far less pronounced, allowing for almost normal cell division. I think if you go ahead and introduce the modified RNA into the nucleus of the key cells, there should be little to no risk of rejection and since immunology will no longer be a factor…"

Michael waved him to silence, watching between the two samples, the cells warring in the first, but in the second, the gradual settlement of conflicting genomes into a reluctantly peaceful genetic organism. He nodded, satisfied.

"Good," he said, his voice clipped.

"So now what happens?" Beckett asked softly.

Michael tilted his head, frowning in query.

"Well I don't imagine for one minute you're just gonnae let me walk out of here." Beckett answered softly.

"I believe I once told you, Doctor, that you underestimate your value," Michael said, still fighting to keep a lid on his mounting anger. He had been angry then too. Rejected, abused and abandoned by the Lanteans – swept aside by their intentions to destroy him, in spite of all of his assistance – in spite of all that could have been.

He glanced at the synthesised serum that sat in the vial in the centre of the workbench. It was there... another step toward retribution decanted into a single complex organism. His breathing quickened as momentary indecision settled over him; doubt clawing at him so strongly that for a moment his hand shook where it rested against the side of the microscope.

One small adjustment; one minor detail that he had kept from Beckett – a single, simple physiological factor, meaningless to the humans, but of profound consequence to him – he had discovered it purely by accident while attempting to perfect the cloning process for his hybrids and realised the full extent of it when he first noticed the changes in Teyla's hybrid DNA. If he did nothing – if he _said_ nothing…

Fisting his still shaking hand he snatched it back to his side, and turning his back on Beckett walked away for several long, slow steps.

"Be very certain, Doctor Beckett," he said slowly without turning around, "that you are prepared to accept the consequences of your decisions this time."

"Michael, I—" Beckett said, soft regret in the sound of each syllable he spoke.

Snarling, he spun around and crossing the distance he had put between himself and the clone of his creator in the time it took for his heart to beat once. He grasped man by throat, continuing to move until they both met the bulkhead with a force strong enough to knock the wind from them both.

"Do not," he snarled, millimetres from Beckett's face, "Do. _Not _dangle empty platitudes before my face. You knew what you were doing, _knew_ what it would mean for me. You were warned and _still_ you pressed ahead with your vicious agenda. Well look around you, Doctor. _See_ what you have done and know that _I_ will not be diverted from _mine._"

Abruptly he released Beckett, remained unmoving, leaning against the bulkhead as the man slid to the ground and stumbled away sideways.

"Remember that," he said more quietly, taking deep breaths to calm his agitation. "And remember our agreement."

"Aye, Michael," Beckett said breathlessly, and he heard the man straighten up. "I'll not forget."

Michael also straightened up, standing away from the bulkhead, though he didn't turn and face the other man.

"See that you don't," he said. "Take it, and leave… now."

* * *

><p>The quiet bleep of the computer signalled the simulation's end. Her head ached and she sat up from the computer to try and ease the pounding, and to banish the uncomfortable feeling that had been assaulting her for some time, that she was being watched.<p>

Sighing, she slipped her hand under the soft cloth covering her head to massage the knot at the back of her neck. She hardly dare turn her attention back to her computer. She hardly needed to. She knew what it would say.

_The fingers pinched the back of her neck as he pushed her into the laboratory. She shivered, but not because of the cold. The smell of blood, of other bodily fluids, greeted her as a timely reminder of her own narrow miss with the humiliation of soiling herself when her interrogation had begun. The same fear threatened again now – and she summoned every atom of control she possessed as she looked on the aftermath of the accident that had taken place in the room. It wasn't hard to piece together what must have happened._

_Corpses lay scattered about the laboratory. Two were soldiers, one lying, with his neck obviously broken, at the base of a sparking mainframe computer. The other lay in a pool of his own blood and entrails. He had an expression of terrified astonishment still fixed on his face._

_The third corpse remained propped where the man had met his terrible final moments. Withered and skeletal, his puckered face was locked in a grimace of agony._

_"Wraith," Ayatesha breathed in matching horror. "A Wraith did this."_

_Abruptly the man holding her let go and moved past her, further into the laboratory._

_"Glad to see your brains weren't completely fried while we were having our little chat," he said. _

_She swallowed hard and shook her head._

_"How did you get a Wraith to Earth?" she asked. Horror upon horror was mounting in her slowly clearing mind, verifying her suspicions – vindicating her decision, (however fruitless), to run from the SGC. She did not want the answer to the questions she asked, but was compelled to ask them anyway. "What were you doing with it?"_

_"You'd be surprised what you can do when the military wants something," the leader of this, obviously covert, unsanctioned unit, answered._

_Ayatesha wrapped her arms around herself, watching him warily, almost backing away as he crouched beside one of the workbenches._

_"What do you want from me?" she demanded, but there was no strength in her voice._

_"Here," he instructed, and when she didn't move he nodded to a soldier that was standing behind her, who prodded her forwards. Her steps faltered when she first caught sight of the Wraith._

_"It's all right. It's dead," the man said, matter of fact, and poked at the limp, upturned feeding hand with his foot._

_Nothing she'd read in Carson's research notes had prepared her for the sight of the Wraith. Nothing could have averted the very visceral fear the sight kindled in her. The long, bone white hair, the pale grey-green skin and discoloured, shark-like teeth conjured images of deadly Djinn from her childhood nightmares. She sidestepped the Wraith's body to come to the side of the room's final corpse._

_The man's hair was bleached of all pigment, and his skin was waxy, pale and marred with engorged, threadlike veins that gave him a mottled appearance. Ayatesha swallowed hard._

_"Please tell me this is not what I think it is," she dared to breathe at last._

_"When they attacked Midway station," the man said, "if it hadn't been for Ronon, Teal'c and the team from Atlantis they would already be here. They're stronger than us, faster…"_

_"They are a deadly Chimera organism with a dominant gene that allowed them to become a species all of their own – an apex predator in their own galaxy, and you want to bring them __**here**__?" she said, shrilly._

_"Whatever that means, Doctor, doesn't really matter." He shook his head and stood up from where he crouched beside the final body. "They're our key to creating super soldiers – but you already knew that. It's why you ran."_

_"I will __**not**__be a party to that," she said. "I already told you: if you try to introduce Wraith DNA into the human genome, the receiving organism will become non-viable. Wraith DNA is too dominant. Either the resulting chimera cells will destroy themselves or the Wraith characteristics will—"_

_"Exactly," he interrupted. "Enhanced speed, increased strength—"_

_"No," she said urgently. "You cannot stop it… it is too unstable."_

_"Then you better find a way to stabilise it, Doctor Haddad, and quickly," he said with pointed menace in his tone._

_"What do you mean?" she asked, taking a step back, only to collide with the soldier he had summoned behind her. "I already told you that I cannot do what even God cannot."_

_The soldier took her arms – held her fast._

_"I told you," she cried as the team leader stepped toward her, a small cylinder in his hand. "I TOLD YOU!"_

Ayatesha wiped at her face, mopping up the tears she had never meant to cry. Self-loathing vied with self-pity – with a bitterness toward the arrogance and inhumanity of mankind – as she got up and hurried toward the bathroom.

She barely made it before the nausea set in and she sank down to exhaust herself in the violent physical and emotional response to the memories.

"If anyone should discover…" she whispered to herself.

_Damned if you do…_

Lorne's voice echoed in her mind, as did thoughts of Carson… gone now to face the very real danger that Michael would never allow him to return. She should have stopped him; should have worked harder to find a solution to Keller's problems.

"I should have gone myself." _After all_, she thought bitterly, _What could Michael do to her worse than had already been done?_

Angrily she snatched the cover from her head and began tearing the tight braids from her hair. Her emotions burned out quickly to despair as a flash of white in the mirror disarmed her anger as she prepared herself for bed.

* * *

><p>McKay paused in his enforced hunt-and-peck style of typing to run a frustrated hand through his hair as he sought to undo the damage he perceived had already been done to the decoding on the telemetry. There was definitely something in the general background stream of Wraith intership communication, but so far it had defied every attempt he made to make sense of it.<p>

He blamed Zelenka and the other technicians of course, and thinking aloud accused, "Of course we'd have got through this by now if only you and your little elves had followed through with the protocol we established, when was it now? Oh I remember – _four years ago_!"

What irritated him more was that Zelenka was refusing to bite.

"Yes, Rodney," he said simply.

"Yes, Rodney?" McKay echoed, his tone sharpening considerably in the absence of something to push against, he was damn well going to make an issue of Zelenka's contrition and that would be an end to it. Only it wasn't, because Radek didn't so much as twitch an eyelid, let alone look up at him, ready to defend himself again the accusation McKay had made and was about to strengthen. He tried again. "What do you mean, _yes, Rodney_?"

"I mean you are right, of course," Zelenka answered, still without looking up. "Atlantis would simply fall to parts without you and your protocols."

"Yes, well, I'm glad we—" Rodney felt no better in the face of Zelenka's continued surrender to his superiority, so when the other scientist continued in the same soft, unimposing tone, the accusation the words carried hit him like one of Ronon's sticks to his gut.

"So, of course, while you were stuck in the infirmary subsisting on jello, tea and sympathy we were bound to make a complete mess of everything and—"

"How _dare_ you!" McKay spluttered, more angry with himself for so completely walking into that than he was with Zelenka for orchestrating the trap that had so completely blindsided him.

Zelenka did look up then, and McKay almost stepped back at the thinly controlled fury he saw burning in his fellow scientist's eyes beneath the mop of hair that was in greater disarray than usual.

"I dare, Rodney," Zelenka began, "because—"

"Hey, fellas, how's it going?"

Relief flooded, irritatingly unexplained, through McKay as Sheppard, Caldwell and Woolsey stepped into the Control Room and Sheppard interrupted the mounting argument. Rodney began to believe that perhaps Kebob, or whatever-her-name-was, had been right when she suggested that there was something seriously wrong with him. He didn't usually find himself crushed in fear by Zelenka's argument – piece of cake, the man was a push-over.

"Well," Zelenka began, but buoyed by Sheppard's presence, McKay interrupted.

"Just as soon as I've undone the mess they made of trying to decode whatever is in the sub-carrier wave of the Wraith comm. network, we'll know more," he said, "but so far we know there's definitely something they're all chattering excitedly over, and that's got to make it important, right?"

He had failed to notice that Zelenka had gone back to whatever task had been occupying the other scientist so urgently as to forestall the argument he'd been trying to have all morning until the other scientist punctuated the silence following his question with a quiet exclamation.

"Oh no," Zelenka said.

"What do you mean, _no_?" McKay asked, more than ready for round two, but his ego driven perception had been off again, he realised, as the creases formed on Woolsey's face.

"Doctor Zelenka?" the base commander asked softly.

"This is bad," Zelenka muttered to himself, then looking up at the others repeated, "this is very bad."

"All right, Genius," McKay loaded as much sarcasm into his tone as he could, "supposing you tell us what, exactly, is so bad, and let us decide what to actually _do_ about the problem."

Zelenka ignored him, and McKay bristled still further, at least until the other man spoke, addressing his comments to Colonel Sheppard and the others.

"I've been… going over the long range sensor telemetry that we pulled from the _Daedalus_ before she went down." He paused to give an apologetic look Caldwell's way, which was met with sad acceptance from the colonel, before he went on, "and if you look here… and here…"

Zelenka pointed to the reconstructed image on the screen of his laptop which showed a blurry representation of a portion of the Pegasus Galaxy. The stars and their orbiting planets little more than grey spots on the reconstructed data, but there – glowing in ruddy clarity – several sensor shadows stood out in shocking relief against the white on grey.

"Are those—?" Sheppard began.

"Wraith Hives," Caldwell confirmed, obvious recognition reflecting in his eyes.

"And cruisers," Zelenka confirmed. "You wouldn't have seen them at the time because your attention was focussed, quite rightly, on the battle you were caught in, but the remaining outward looking sensors picked, as you can see, what seems to be some kind of… of gathering among the Wraith. They—"

"Can you map that on our main display?" Woolsey asked.

"Yes, yes," Zelenka nodded and McKay watched, his heart sinking lower than his boots as he realised what his sojourn in the infirmary may have cost them. Zelenka overlaid McKay's self-recriminations with rapid keystrokes. "Just give me a minute and I'll have it."

McKay swallowed, and looked up at Sheppard as they waited. The lieutenant colonel looked tired, and looked up to catch his perusal. It was all McKay could do to look away guiltily.

"Rodney, you got a minute?" Sheppard's voice drew his gaze back to the other man as he stepped away from the anxious cabal of the upper echelons of Atlantis command. McKay followed after only a moment, and walked right into Sheppard's hissed, urgent enquiry. "What's going on, McKay?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, swallowing hard. It seemed to be his phrase of the day.

"What do I mean?" Sheppard asked incredulously. "First I have to fish you out of this infirmary, which, I might add, if I ever have to do again, I'm gonna ride your tail so hard you won't be able to sit down for the rest of the year; second I walk in here to find you deliberately picking a fight with Radek—"

"Zelenka and I always argue," McKay offered in self-defence, "It's what we do."

"Not like that," Sheppard said and shook his head. "If you need time, McKay; if there's something bothering you; you need help, I wish you'd come to me. I might be military commander of this screwed up expedition, but I _thought_ I was your friend."

"You are, Sheppard," McKay answered quickly, "You are, but..." he sighed then, and put his hand on Sheppard's shoulder, uncharacteristically reaching out to the other man. "You've had so much of your own to deal with, what with Michael, and Teyla… Todd…"

"I told you," Sheppard said with quiet urgency, his face darkened at the mention of two of the three names in such close succession to one another. "I can handle it. What I can't deal with is the people I can rely on having a major melt down in front of my eyes when they could come to _me_ for help."

McKay sighed again, and before he knew the words that would come spilling out of his mouth he started to speak. "It's Jennifer."

"Keller?"

"Of course, Keller. How many other Jennifers do you know?"

"What about her?" Sheppard asked.

"I just… I wanted to be on hand in the infirmary in case anything… happened," he finished sadly. Then just a beat later, added, "She's not getting any better. Beckett can't do anything, and neither can this so-called expert he called in. I'm scared, John. I think we're going to lose her."

"You're… scared?" Sheppard asked with a frown.

McKay took a deep breath, and said softly. "I love her."

"You… Keller?"

"Yes," McKay answered, and then frowning deeply demanded, "Why is that so difficult to believe?"

"No, no. It's not, just…" Sheppard trailed off shaking his head. "Listen, McKay, whatever the docs may or may not be able to do for Jennifer, the best way _you_ can help her right now is to stay on top of your game. Get that sub-channel deciphered; figure out what it is the Wraith are up to."

McKay took another breath. He knew Sheppard was right, but it was hard to focus on anything else when the woman he loved was lying at death's door – no, worse than that, he told himself. She was firmly ensconced in death's own bedroom, with only a fragile cord tying her to what she'd left behind in Atlantis.

"Okay," he said simply.

Sheppard nodded, and was about to speak when Caldwell called his name. Reluctantly, McKay followed him back to the others, where Zelenka had finished plotting the position of the Hives and cruisers they'd detected.

"Oh this is _so_ not good," Sheppard said as he moved aside to give McKay room in the semi-circle around the screen.

"That's right on the edge of the Atlantis protected zone," Woolsey said in protest as though the gathered Wraith would hear him and move away. "We promised protection to the peoples of those planets out there."

Sheppard shook his head. "That's as may be, but right now, I'm afraid they're on their own. There's very little we can do for them right now, even if we tried."

Caldwell nodded in concurrence with Sheppard's assessment of the situation. "Even if the _Daedalus_ were operational, the best we could hope for would be a partial evacuation, and I doubt that's what they'd want."

"What about the _Odyssey_ and the _Sun Tzu_? When are they due to arrive?" Woolsey asked, frowning in consternation, no doubt, at being unable to deliver on promises made.

Frowning, Caldwell answered, "Both ships are currently en route from Earth. It'll take them another four, maybe five days before they reach us, but even if they were here right now, against that kind of combined fire power? They'd end up like _Daedalus,_ or worse. What we need is Intel."

"Steven's right," Sheppard said. "We need to know what they're planning so that we can be proactive in defence against whatever it is."

Caldwell nodded and said, "Anything we'd do right now in terms of attacking them would be a reactive assault, and our track record in that respect is not a very good one."

"And where do you propose we… acquire this Intel?" Woolsey asked.

"We, erm," McKay interjected, already moving back toward his station. "We may already have it. That may be what's encoded in the comm. traffic's sub-channel."

"All right," Woolsey said, almost decisively. "See what you can do to decode it. Use every available resource."

"I'm on it," McKay answered, though he didn't miss Sheppard's wry smile as the colonel turned toward Caldwell and Woolsey.

"Meanwhile," Woolsey said equally as decisively, "we better start paying a visit to some of our off world allies; see what we can come up with."

"And if that doesn't work, I can think of something else that might," Sheppard added quietly. "I think by now he owes me."

* * *

><p>Todd growled softly as he stepped into his quarters. The bouquet of the handmaiden's mixed emotions was as exquisite as the touch of the most accomplished masseuse. It soothed his lingering agitation – focussed it like a lens into a shaft of cold, hard fury that straightened his back and made his body ache with the anticipation of what he would take from her.<p>

She stood just as straight as he. Her head was held high and he was in no doubt that she knew that he had entered. She flinched, but barely, as he came to a stop behind her and brought his hand to settle on her shoulder; allowed his fingers to stroke the edges of her hair and toy with the tender, soft skin at the side of her neck… waiting.

The silence between them stretched, became an almost heightened sense of predatory desire. On a cruel whim he stepped closer, his left hand ceasing its idle play at her throat to glide within her silken bodice, talons grazing soft curves and the peaks that rose to meet his fingers as she failed to keep her hungry, needful moan inside. Enzyme dripped from his aching feeding hand as he closed it into a fist at his side.

The smouldering embers, banked beneath his anger, lapped to a tongue of flame as he tasted the scent of her arousal – heavy, full hot within his sensory pits. Then her hand flashed up to close around his wrist. Her polished fingernails pricking like soft claws against his skin.

"How dare you presume—" she started, but gasped as he snatched his hand away from her grasp, wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her back against his body; his hand against her sex.

Leaning down, he spoke softly, almost purring.

"It is… customary for the new commander to _take_ everything that had belonged to the one he defeated," he said.

"You!" she gasped.

"I," he confirmed, and shifted his hand over her.

Her breathing quickened and her hand, once clasped against his, restraining, now slid sensually over his leather clad arm until her fingers covered his and encouraged his touch more intimately.

He chuckled, but without mirth, as he turned his hand beneath hers to grasp her fingers and turn her wrist until she yelped in pain.

"My Lord," she whimpered and looked up at him as he spun her to face him.

"You honestly believe yourself to be _worthy_ of my attentions? That I would debase myself in ploughing a furrow between the rot and shit between your legs?" he hissed hotly against her cheek as he pulled her close again.

He felt himself flush and harden in satisfaction as he watched the colour drain from her face, and the first hint of panic dilate her pupils. Ineffectually, she tugged against his restraining grasp until, laughing softly, he let her go. She began to back away.

"What did he promise you, girl?" he snarled.

_~where will you go?~ ~go~ ~go~ ~go~ ~go~ ~go~_

"What _base_ desires…?"

_~you have nowhere to run~ ~run~ ~run~ ~run~ ~run~ ~run~_

Still she backed away, but he began to move, stalking her, toying with her as he wound his mind more tightly into hers.

"My Lord, please," she begged, "anything. I will give _anything_. You can do—"

"ON YOUR KNEES!" he roared and tightened the mental grasp so strongly that she cried out, a thin trail of blood beginning to drip from her nose as she sank to the ground.

"Please, my lord," she whispered and dabbed at the blood dripping onto her lip.

"The time for begging and pleading has _long_ since passed," he murmured, looking down at her, and even as she threw herself at his feet, he filled her mind with the pain and images of his intentions for her. "You will die as you have lived."

* * *

><p>She closed her eyes and practically prostrated herself in front of him, clasping his boots, trembling uncontrollably. The pain began as an itch, a burning in her most tender spaces as his illusion wound tightly into her mind. She knew it wasn't real, but she could see their faces…<p>

…_felt them as they forced her to yield – each and every worshipper and Handler of the Hive. She felt their greedy hands, their hungry mouths, and their fumbling, grunting, desperate possession of her until she ran filthy with their satiation…_

Sobbing, then screaming – unable to stop herself, to stand the terror of it – she rolled onto her back. The Wraith commander stood motionless above her and wavered as if _he_ were the illusion.

"Please…" she could barely form the word, her mouth was so swollen and numb from attentions merely imagined, but unwelcome. She understood then, by the merciless anger she saw coming from him, just what her information had cost his concubine. "…forgive…"

* * *

><p>Finally, her trembling arms collapsed from the effort of holding her up and she fell to roll to her back, staring up at his immobile form. All the pain and horror he had seen in Alicia's eyes he now saw reflected in this one – this frail and worthless human.<p>

"Forgive…" the word was little more than a breath and he knew she understood. Pity, not forgiveness, moved him in the end.

Abruptly, he released her mind, yet remained still as the sound of her keening punished the silence of his quarters for his cruelty.

"For her sake," he rumbled, his voice a bastion of control, "and hers alone."

Merihanna sobbed her gratitude wordlessly as he gestured with a jerk of his head that she should rise, before he ordered, "Get up," and remained stock-still as she practically climbed his body, unable otherwise to obey.

"My life in service of the Wraith," she whispered, and clasped him about the knees – he suspected it was the best she could do to rise.

"Indeed," he said almost gently, and as she looked up to see him, lost her balance and swayed backwards, his fisted feeding hand uncurled. With no other warning than his sudden snarl, his claws sank deep into her skin as his weeping maw latched hard against her chest.

Her dying screams were smothered by his near ecstatic roaring, until silence remained, littered only by the whisper of dust, drawn across the deck by unseen currents.

* * *

><p>"Doctor Beckett, this is most irregular," Varnerin marched alongside Carson, coming in the opposite direction from Ayatesha when she first spotted them. "Standard Atlantis Protocol demands that all personnel returning from perilous situations off world undergo a full debriefing, and since you <em>wrote<em> that protocol I would think—"

"I don't give a damn what you think, professor," Carson snapped, reaching out toward Ayatesha to take her arm and turn her to walk with them, toward the infirmary she realised, and without breaking stride either in his passage along the corridor or the sentiment he was voicing to Varnerin, continued, "I have a patient in need of urgent treatment that won't wait for even the most succinct debriefing, so if you don't mind, and I'll make this as clear as I can so there's little misunderstanding between the two of us, leave me, my patient, and my medical staff the hell alone. I won't tell you again."

Carson thought the infirmary door open in front of them, which Ayatesha supposed was an ATA carrier's way of holding open the door for a lady, and then turned in the doorway itself to prevent Varnerin from following. He folded his arms stubbornly across his chest and remained in place until the professor took the hint and with a huff spun on his heel and returned along the corridor away from the infirmary. Only then did Carson turn and let out a long breath as the door sighed closed behind him. It seemed to Ayatesha that it was all he could do not to lean on it.

"Carson," she let out her own breath in an exclamation of his name and forgetting herself for the briefest of moments, hurried to cross the small space between them to wrap her arms around him. She held him tightly and the hug was reciprocated with matching fervour. "I thought—"

Carson pulled back, cutting her off with a shake of his head.

"I'm fine," he said softly, then his face softened into a brief smile and amusement twinkled in his eyes. "Though, you might want to get changed if you're going to assist."

Ayatesha looked down at herself confused, until she realised she was wearing only the long, soft cotton caftan and hijab she favoured when off duty, or at home. He had seen her wearing it on several occasions before – on Earth – and had always teased her about it then too.

"Give me a moment," she said softly, and hurried to go and find some scrubs to change into.

* * *

><p>Chaya whimpered as he shifted her in his arms and carefully lay her down beside the stream bed. Her skin was pale, and she was cold to the touch, clammy. Blood caked the side of her belly, and yet more ran freely from a cut at the top of her shoulder. He had to stop that if she was going to have any chance of lasting the fast approaching night.<p>

"Come on, sweetheart," he said softly, nudging her cheek with his flattened hand. "Open your eyes for me."

He reached out to try and free the rapid-breathing animal from Chaya's blistered hands, but even in her semi-conscious state the girl wouldn't release her hold on the creature she had obviously saved from the burning basket.

"It's all right," he tried. "I won't hurt him, I promise."

She opened her eyes, just enough for him to tell that she didn't see him, not truly. She was delirious, her injuries too great for lucidity. Breathing out a hard sigh, he quickly ripped a wide strip from the bottom of his shirt, and wet it in the ice cold water of the stream to bring it back, dripping, to lay over Chaya's hands. She cried out at the contact, roused by the pain.

"Mamma!"

Ronon's heart twisted in his chest, and he swallowed hard, refusing before that moment to acknowledge how he'd failed – how he'd allowed Raisa to be taken by the Wraith; refusing to imagine what could be happening to her.

A snap of breaking wood, like a gunshot to his left brought his blaster to his hand, and he moved to crouch over Chaya, almost like a beast over its prey… protective – possessive.

"Wait," a voice called out. Human. Laquoian. "Don't shoot."

"Come out," he said, moving back only slightly from hovering over Chaya to kneeling by her side. "Keep your hands where I can see them."

First one, and then another tattered survivor stepped from the cover of the surrounding evergreens.

"We won't harm you," the man said. "There is safety in numbers, yes?"

Ronon appraised him quickly. Though he carried a stout stick – the end of fallen branch – the man was no threat. He was a farmer, from the look of him, and the other slightly younger man, better dressed behind the soot and dirt and bloodstains likely one of the traders from the market.

"How did you escape?" Ronon demanded, somewhat harsher than he intended.

"We ran," the younger man admitted. "Like cowards, when the Wraith first came, we ran from the market to try and find safety among the trees. They can't cull in the trees. We thought—"

"We heard you coming," the older man said, "We thought you were one of them, searching."

"You should have stayed hidden," Ronon snapped, his tone bitter. "You'd only have gotten yourself killed."

"Perhaps," the older man said calmly, "but we couldn't let them find the others; had to keep them safe."

Ronon frowned. "Others?"

"At the caves," the young man said. "A small group of us; we hid there, waiting for the Wraith to leave us alone."

Barely a twenty of them survived.

A woman, her face streaked with tears detached herself from the huddled, frightened knot of Laquioans and approached the older man as they all arrived back at the cave. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and wept as he held her tightly.

Ronon's gut clenched and he tightened his own arms around Chaya. She was barely breathing. There was only one thing he could do for her, for _all_ of these people, and though it was something he really did not wish to do, he had no choice – not any more. They didn't deserve this kind of end.

* * *

><p>"All right, everyone," Beckett said softly, trying not to hold his breath as he looked around at the select and trusted few he had allowed into the treatment room with Keller. Ayatesha, of course, and Marie, plus two other nurses that he knew he could trust. "Before we start, I want to make it clear that whatever happens here today, and whatever we see should remain absolutely confidential, and I mean <em>beyond<em> patient privilege. Am I understood?"

He watched and listened as each member of the team confirmed his instructions, and hated the frown that materialised on Ayatesha's face, but… how could he tell her what Michael suspected when he didn't believe it himself, and how much of his own disbelief was wishful thinking?

"I will… need to have the body scanner set to cellular level to be able to see if the serum is producing the desired effects," Ayatesha saved him from his mounting guilt as she spoke. Instead he nodded and made the necessary adjustments.

"All right, bearing in mind the source of this serum, we need to be ready for just about _any_ reaction right across the spectrum, so let's have her restrained please," he fought to keep his voice steady and to keep from wiping his suddenly damp palms against the front of his scrubs.

"We're ready, doctor," Marie's calm voice disturbed the silence moments later.

"Right, stand back, please," it was an unnecessary request, now that Jennifer was restrained, but he refused to put any one of them in harm's way, or to bring them closer to responsibility for Keller's reaction in upcoming minutes, than he had already asked them to be. With a deep breath he inserted the needle into the port on Keller's IV and began to slowly inject the serum he and Michael had developed. He glanced up at Ayatesha and asked, "Anything?"

"Nothing yet," she told him as her eyes flickered back and forth over the scanner screen that scrolled with visual representation of Keller's DNA over half of its surface.

"Come on, Jennifer," he whispered softly, leaning over to brush his fingertips over her brow as he withdrew the needle and as if daring her to prove them all wrong added, "It worked in simulation…"

They waited, and several long minutes passed, each one crawling as if twice or three times its length. He let out a long slow breath, uncertain whether it was one of disappointment or relief when nothing seemed to happen. A prickling at the back of his neck became more noticeable and he knew that wouldn't last.

"Doctor Beckett, I'm seeing an increase in her core temperature. Ninety-eight point five… point six… seven…" Marie read off the numbers that began flashing on the screen.

"Ayatesha?" Carson frowned, as she started to shake her head and then stopped.

"There," Ayatesha said suddenly, "I see encoding transcription and—Oh my God, Carson!"

"Talk to me, please," he snapped. He didn't mean to, and could see for himself the movement of key sections of DNA in the chains displayed on the screen, but Ayatesha could understand far better what was going on; what was likely to be the result.

"That's just it," she told him, "I don't know."

"Temperature now at ninety-seven point nine; her blood pressure is rising." Marie warned.

"Damn it," Carson spat, glancing at the monitors and not at all liking what he saw. He stamped on any threat of rising panic with a heavy boot as he turned to pick up several vials of medication from the nearby tray. "This is why I hate computer simulations."

He turned one vial up and inserted the needle to draw up a medication that would stabilise Keller's climbing blood pressure. He turned to administer the drug, and jumped when Ayatesha caught his wrist.

"Wait!" she said urgently, "Wait."

He shook off her grasp.

"There's no time, Y'tesha, look," he grabbed her arm and turned her away from the screen to look down at Jennifer's immobile form. He too forced himself to watch as the tremors began in his fellow doctor's limbs and her veins and arteries engorged, making it almost possible to see the passage of red and blue-black blood through her body. Her skin took on a mottled red and black spreading pattern as capillaries burst, unable to take the strain of the blood rushing through them.

"Temperature one hundred and one point three, still climbing." Marie said.

"Ice packs, now!" Beckett ordered, and moved away to allow the nurses to place the cold packs around Keller's head. He pulled away from Ayatesha as she reached for him again. "I have to do this. If her BP climbs any further—"

"Carson, you administer that and she's going to crash the minute this transcription is complete!" she said urgently.

"Then _tell_ me what's happening!"

"The chimera cells that were causing the continual cellular degradation are being insulated by a layer of rapidly hybridising cells. Transcription is occurring in a bipolar direction allowing for communication between the Wraith and the Human DNA."

"She's hybridising?"

"No," Ayatesha grabbed Keller's chart and a pen from his pocket and rapidly drew a simplified diagram of what was displayed on the screen. "Here is the section of degraded Human cells, and here are the attacking Wraith cells… in between, these few cells are hybridised in such a way as to provide a barrier between the two, like a mesh, with Wraith to Wraith, and Human to Human and between the two, communication, not conflict. This will stabilise and there will no longer be the release of the enzyme into her bloodstream which will allow her already transcribed immune cells to deal with the residual toxins."

"Then she—" Beckett breathed.

"Her condition will stabilise," Ayatesha said even as alarms began to sound from all the monitors. "Trust me."

"Ayatesha…" Carson almost pleaded with her as he listened to the high pitched cacophony that surrounded them both, but this time he didn't pull away when her fingers closed around his wrist. Absurdly he noticed how cold her hand was.

"Insha'allah," she whispered softly, as she looked up into his eyes.

_God willing indeed_, he thought, and tensed every muscle in his body until it was almost painful in an attempt to shut out the continuing alarms, which pointed at his every sensibility to act… to save his patient.

"Doctor Beckett, her BP is dropping… temperature holding, now at one hundred point one degrees." Marie said softly, and after only another moment or two, the many alarms fell to silence.

Beckett glanced up at the cellular scan, which rotated to show an almost normalising cell, chimerical of necessity, but as normal as could be under the circumstances. He let out a rapid sigh, which didn't stop him from hearing Ayatesha's rapidly whispered Arabic.

"Al hamdu li'llah."

His relief, so intense it almost drained his entire being of all but the will to stand, was halted in its tracks as though it ran into an oncoming freight train as Marie spoke softly.

"Doctor Beckett, is that what I think it is?" she asked, pointing to a part of the scan that was showing in a lesser resolution than at cellular level.

He looked up and cliché though it was, his entire body froze and his blood slowed to a crawl through his veins, and pounded in his ears, like an army marching through his every sensibility.

"Oh, my God, he was right," he whispered.

"Doctor?" Marie asked.

Awareness sharpened into focus again from the blur of unwelcome revelation, and looking at the two nurses he ordered, "Give us the room, please."

They obeyed without question, and once they had, he refocused the scan onto the region of Keller's abdomen, wanting to be doubly certain before he made any firm diagnosis. There, implanted deeply within the upper right side of Jennifer's uterus, was the tiny, but clearly visible foetus.

"She's pregnant," Marie made the diagnosis for him in a voice that was thick with shock.

"Certainly appears that way," he answered, his voice flat with resignation.

"But that's not possible," Marie argued. "She underwent a D and C shortly before falling ill, there's no way—"

"It is not unprecedented," Ayatesha interrupted, staring at the screen. Beckett couldn't help but feel that it wasn't a surprise to her. "Even on Earth."

"What do you mean?" Marie asked, frowning.

""The kangaroo has the ability to freeze the embryo in cases of—" She answered.

"She's not a bloody kangaroo, Y'tesha," Beckett yelped, feeling more than a little overwhelmed, not to mention despairing. "She's human. She—"

"And that is no human child," Ayatesha answered, and at his uncomprehending stare, reached to refocus the scanner on the foetus and close in to a cellular level scan again. He tasted bile as the familiar pattern of Wraith cells and accompanying Wraith DNA began to fill the scanner's screen.

"You knew," he accused softly.

"I suspected," she admitted, "but believe me, I hoped otherwise."

"How?"

"A long time ago, when I began helping you with your research into the identification of the Ancient radical within the human genome, I discovered a different gene fragment related and yet unconnected with the Ancient radical, at the time I dismissed it… yet… when you consulted with me on your hybridisation experiment, there it was again, in… Michael's DNA profile; a gene fragment, a radical that when switched on allowed for transcription between the cells in him that were Human, and the ones that were Wraith."

"The Chimera Radical," Beckett breathed, and at her puzzled expression said, "When… I was working with Michael we…identified a gene fragment that seemed to facilitate the transcription that allowed for a greater success rate in his hybridisation process."

"Ah," she nodded. "Well… when I first examined Keller's DNA, I found it and anticipated a different function for this particular radical – especially since I could not puzzle out why Jennifer would subject herself to such a violent procedure unless she, herself, believed that such an eventuality was possible. I came to the conclusion that she knew of the radical as well."

"You worried that she could have been pregnant and you didn't say anything," Beckett said, trembling in barely contained anger.

"I dismissed it." Ayatesha shook her head. "She was completely asymptomatic and I even tested; there was nothing to lead me to believe that she was. Besides, you had undertaken six separate and all negative pregnancy tests. Would you have me question your competence?"

Beckett sighed. He couldn't be angry with Ayatesha. She had done exactly as he had done.

"Sorry," he said softly.

Again, Ayatesha shook her head. "Wala Haga itsamiH," she said softly.

"But what are we going to do?" Marie asked, staring at Keller, abject sympathy in her eyes.

"We'll do whatever Jennifer wants us to do," Beckett answered, though it didn't, he thought, take a scientist of his calibre to guess what that would be.

"No," Ayatesha answered him, a note of dark sorrow in her voice as she pulled back the scan to a lesser resolution. "There is nothing _to_ be done. Look."

* * *

><p>Alarm ran through the hallways of Atlantis, hurrying Sheppard's footsteps back toward the Gate Room.<p>

"Unscheduled offworld activation," Chuck's voice was clearly audible even over the sound of the blaring cloister warning, and the hum of the raised gate shield. On automatic, he accepted the weight of the P90 from an SO's hands, and stood ready with the rest of the security detail, waiting for the Gate Tech's word on who, or what might be coming through.

"It's Ronon's IDC," Zelenka's voice smoothed over his jagged nerves. Still no one stood down.

"Lower the shield," Sheppard ordered, and the hum that rattled through his very back teeth, this close to the gate, suddenly ceased.

A moment later his Satedan friend stepped from the shimmering of the event horizon, looking harried, and carrying a small, limp form in his arms. At his back a ragged band of humans – clearly refugees – stepped from the puddle of light, each looking bemused and shell shocked.

_Great,_ he thought. _ This is all we need._ Suddenly he realised how Elizabeth must have felt all those years ago when he stepped through with the Athosians behind him. From the other side, this felt frighteningly familiar.

"Ronon," he said, "What the—"

"I need a medic!" Ronon yelled, ignoring him completely, and already starting toward the corridor that led to the infirmary.

"Ronon, stand down," Sheppard barked the order, and Ronon jerked to a halt. Sheppard turned his head and nodded to Chuck.

"Doctor Haddad, report to the Gate Room. Medical emergency," Chuck's calm voice made him feel just a little better.

"Stand down," Sheppard ordered the security detail, spotting Woolsey coming out of his office. "Let's get these people secured."

"I brought them here," Ronon's voice rumbled in the ensuing silence. "They need sanctuary. Laquoia's gone. Wraith…"

Sheppard looked over at the small group of people that had followed Ronon through the Stargate, and then glanced up to meet Zelenka's eyes only to see the same horror that he felt coursing through him reflected from behind the lenses of the scientist's glasses.

"Oh my God," Zelenka's soft exclamation reached him even across the distance. "We're too late. It's started."

"Let me take her."

The accented female voice drew him back from the darkness of the Czech's words to watch as Ayatesha tried to encourage Ronon to set the child down onto the gurney. He was unwilling.

"Ronon, let the woman do her job," he ordered softly, laying a hand onto Ronon's arm. "And tell me what the hell happened."

Ronon carefully set the bundle down onto the gurney, a young girl, now that Sheppard could see, badly wounded and very pale. She was clutching something close to her chest. Some kind of comforter or soft toy, as scorched as her hands, from what he could see, but then it moved, and mewled weakly.

"What the—?" Sheppard snapped, and for no reason his heart started pounding again in his chest.

"It's a kitling," Ronon told the doctor. "She won't let it go."

"That's all right," Ayatesha said, "I can treat the… kitling also."

"But it's a cat, doc!" Sheppard protested, more out of surprise than actual disapproval.

"A life is a life, Colonel," she answered, already assessing the girl as she instructed the rest of her medical team to give what aid was necessary to the Laquioan refugees. She looked up at Ronon then and said, "Come with us, hmm?"

Sheppard couldn't help but smile, warming to the woman as he followed Ronon and the medical team toward the infirmary, ignoring Woolsey's pointed attempts to attract his attention.

* * *

><p>Todd stood in the doorway, his bulk preventing the stronger, harsher light from the corridor at his back from invading the obviously intentional soft illumination of the private chamber. He growled softly, mostly inward, watching as Alicia got up from the low divan that graced the centre of the room, and paced to the low table, to sit on the stool in front of it as if to beautify herself in its mirror. Instead she placed her folded arms along its surface, and rested her head on her arms. She was uncomfortable and restless. He could feel it.<p>

At her soft moan, he crossed the room and came to a knee behind the stool, even before the door had hissed closed. He wrapped his strong right arm around her as she sat up and swayed backwards, and laid the back of his other hand against the skin of her neck. It was clammy and overly warm.

"You are fevered, my little Alicia," he told her softly.

She leaned back against him, tucking herself into the crook of his neck, her face turned toward him.

"I don't know what was in that medicine you gave me," she told him, moaning again softly, "but since you gave it to me, I haven't felt… right. I can't get comfortable. It feels like my flesh is trying to crawl off my bones, I'm so restless."

Todd frowned. The serum should have made her feel better. He was certain that he had formulated the drug correctly.

"And my head, I feel like—" she broke off suddenly, and turning slightly in the stool, reached across him and laid her arm over the front of his chest. "It doesn't matter. You're here now."

For a moment, he allowed it, but then eased her away, drawing her to arm's length so he could look into her face.

"Of course it matters, Alicia," he said. "If you are unwell, I need to know. Now – what about your head?"

"It aches," she said and sighed, "I feel as if I'm in a hollow room where a whole army of people are muttering and whispering all at once."

He tilted his head, watching her curiously for a moment, wondering at how she could not have made the obvious assumption. She _was_ aboard a Wraith Hive ship, at its very heart, in the Queen's Chambers, after all. She was—

"What are you thinking?" she asked, derailing his train of thought. She reached up to cup his cheek with her hand; ran her thumb across the shape of his face, and from the contact, his breath caught, his chest tightening.

"I am thinking," he rumbled softly, shifting his arms around her until he could slip his wrist beneath her legs, and lift her effortlessly against him as he rose to his feet. She whimpered slightly, and then clung to him, her arms around his shoulders. "…that you need to relax."

She gave him an almost smile, blinking at him like some small marsupial creature, asking, "How do you propose I do that?"

"Allow me to show you," he purred, and without waiting for permission, he carried her across the room toward the private bathing chamber.

* * *

><p>When he set her down, she didn't let go of his arm. She grasped the hot leather in her fingers while she waited to regain her balance. He'd said she had a fever. Perhaps that was why she felt so dizzy, unsteady and nauseous.<p>

"Give yourself time, my parmhuna," he murmured, running his fingers around the neckline of the dress she wore. "There is no rush."

She shook her head, and looked over the swell of his biceps to the deep pool behind him. The water looked so clear, so inviting – she could almost feel the warmth of it calling to her suddenly unfamiliar muscles.

"I think my body is arguing with you," she told him, looking up and smiling. "It looks so good."

She relaxed her fingers from the death grip they had on his forearm, and lifted them to the fastening of the dress, struggling with the unusual mechanism of it and trying not to let her haste and failure frustrate her.

His fingers brushed against hers, easing them away as he deftly twisted the fastening free of the clasp, and delicately, slowly began to encourage the soft fabric to slip from the apex of her shoulders, to pool suddenly on the floor at her feet. She shivered, and self-consciously shielded her nakedness against his gaze.

_~you have no need to hide yourself from me~ ~from me~ ~me~ ~me~ ~me~_

She blushed, and slowly unfurled as he offered her his hand, to steady her descent into the sunken bath. Her fingers trembled only slightly as they settled into the palm of his hand, and he closed their warmth over her hand to almost stately bring her to the water's edge.

He was right. Given their relationship – what they had shared – she felt it foolish, almost childish, to be embarrassed in front of Todd, and he was being so attentive; so concerned.

"Settle yourself, little one," his voice was soft and heavy in the silence of the room. "I will be outside if you need anything."

Swallowing hard, she nodded, then moaned as she stepped into the warmth of the water, and lowered herself into the soothing comfort of its weightlessness. Sighing softly she lay her head back against the cool of the bath's smoothly curved edge, melting into the pleasure that surrounded her. As the tension began to drain out of her muscles though, the desire for privacy, and the need to be alone with her thoughts seeped away. The truth was she wanted Todd to stay.

"Todd," she called out his name, and heard him stop moving; heard the slight rustle of his leather as he turned back to her, wordlessly. "Stay."

"Alicia—"

"Please," she said, "I want you to. Join me."

He rumbled softly, and she looked up to meet his steady gaze, nodding slowly, and invitingly moved her hand through the surface of the water, making ripples that lapped back from the side of the bath over her skin… prelude… promise, as Todd reached for and unclipped the belt at his waist, and unfastened his coat.

Alicia looked away, a rush of bashful innocence coming over her. She did not look back until the slight splash of water rushed over her, and she felt him settle at her side, and the wet warmth of his fingers brush over her shoulder.

The touch burned like the sting of a nettle, but with pain of a different kind as desire and fear warred for control. He wanted her – of that she was in little doubt, and she wanted to be with him, but between them grew the thorny forest of circumstance, high and impenetrable, it seemed, encircling their fitfully sleeping desire.

She thought, in a sudden flush of romanticism, that perhaps, as in all good fairy tales, she could break the curse with a kiss, and moving slowly, balancing herself against the side of the bath, she turned toward him, straddled his legs and rested on her keen against the low shelf that served as a seat.

His arms closed around her, his fingers pressing in a gentle massage against her lower back as if he could tell that it troubled her; as if he could feel the dull ache that persisted. She moaned softly at the pleasure of it – not out of any sense of intimate arousal, but simply because if felt so damn good. She forgot herself, and leaned in closer, the full length of the front of her body pressed against his, and made another low moan as he dipped his head and nipped at the fullness of her lower lip.

A full rush of sensation burst through her, drawing a deep ache at her centre, even as her heart skipped and stuttered through a rhythm made reluctant by the violence still too fresh in her mind. She pushed against his shoulder, angrier with herself than any other feeling. She wanted him. She wanted so much to be normal.

"Alicia," he purred her name, "you must give yourself time."

"No," she raised her head from his shoulder somewhat sharply, and thrust her gaze deep into the startled expression in his catlike eyes. "I know you're being patient with me, Todd, and bless you for it, but... I won't let him _beat_ me like this. He's already done enough with his violence... I won't let him take this from me... from _us_."

"You _must_ give yourself time," he repeated quietly. His expression deepened then, as he tilted his head, regarding her softly. "I understand the sentiment, my parmhuna, and I _feel_ your desire – but I will not compound your anguish by encouraging what would be better served by waiting on the moment. Is that not how it is done with your kind?"

"No," she said, "yes... I don't know. Maybe." She sighed in frustration, "Todd, I can't _stand_ this restlessness. I need to know that my body can feel pleasure at the touch of another – that I can _bring_ that to—"

"Slowly," he said, and to her ears his voice sounded thick and heavy with need. "There are... other—"

Impulse guided her to do what conscious thought would have run from screaming. She reached between them and cupped him... trapped him against the heat of the inside of her thigh... cutting off the words and drawing a deep growl from the back of his throat.

Swallowing down her mounting nervousness, she began to tease the stiffening length of him with the tips of her fingers, until she could move back enough to close her fingers around him, stroking him lightly from his base to the budlike head of his sex, and again.

He took in a deep breath that she felt vibrated between the two of them, and once or twice shifted to catch the feathery touch of her hand against him.

"I will not break, my Alicia," he chuckled softly, and closed his long fingered hand over hers. His touch guided her hand against him... eased the stroke and taught the pleasure that changing pressure clearly intensified his arousal as he responded to the beckoning of her hand. She became lost in the almost meditative flow of it and barely noticed when he slipped his hand away.

A sharp gasp, and a long, deep moan escaped her as _his_ touch followed the direction of her own. His knowing fingers penetrated slowly, teasing over and around her own peaked nub, delicately parting the silk of her enfolding flesh before gliding within, lingering against the protest of her trembling muscles with an almost rapid flicker until the tension evaporated into the purity of her need, and she pressed against him, giving his touch deeper still.

She ran the palm of her hand over his opening glans as she stimulated his pleasure to greater heights, and his low rumble was almost one that voiced an anguish far deeper than the pleasure was high. His inner organ was softer, hotter, and as she matched the manner of her touch over the almost silk of it, with the touch he had shown her, his breathing quickened, the rumbling moan that growled at the back of his throat increased until he threw back his head and roared as his fulfilment rushed from him.

The sight and sound of his pleasure, and the shared sensations from his mind that had slipped, unnoticed over her own, drew the sharp edge of her own need – unfulfilled and burning in her – and as she shifted against him, moving to catch the touch with which he had been teasing her still, he plundered her; found her within and without, and crying out for him she shattered, blinded and trembling in intensity as her climax took her into senselessness.

_A blood-red river flowed from a high plain across a withered desert... and where it touched the bank, green orchid-like flowers, tiny, a carpet of them, began to creep across the land._


	2. Act 2

**Stargate Atlantis**

Convocation

_…wave after wave, each mightier than the last…_

**Act 2**

Had any inhabitants of the planet remained nearby to witness their descent through the atmosphere to the designated coordinates of the gathering, the sight of five Elder Hives landing in a carefully choreographed dance would have been enough to frighten most simple humans to death. They whistled in their descent through the air, burning clouds and cloudless sky and overshadowed everything in their path, heedless of tree or mountaintop that dared to hinder their passage.

Such were the thoughts with which Malcolm filled his mind in order to banish the concern he otherwise felt at the precipitous and perhaps imprudently called Convocation of Elders.

Trusting no other to take his place at the controls during such a delicate operation, the _almost-emotions_ of the Hive tingled through his fingers and nibbled, like fish, at the edges of his mental awareness. It didn't help with his feelings of discomfort. Neither did the sight on the view screen of the two flanking Hives, which held with him in strict formation at the landing site.

Finding space to land a single Hive was demanding enough, but five, splayed out in a star-like pattern, bows to centre, was a feat he did not care to over-think. Nor was the tense orbital standoff of ten supporting cruisers, all – if the other commanders had given similar orders to those he had given his own support ships – with their weapons carefully targeted on one Hive or another in a position that would cause the most damage.

The Consort-Commanders of an Elder Hive were nothing if not cautious.

_=suspicious?=_

Quickly and efficiently, he secured the Hive in landed mode, and then stepped down from the central control dais. He turned to sweep into a low, respectful bow to the Elder Queen and remained, eyes downcast, body inclined toward her, as she stalked onto the bridge.

_{always, my Queen, where your sisters are concerned}_

She chuckled softly and reached out her curled, but still razor-tipped fingers to encourage him to rise. He fell into step at her right shoulder as she walked toward the view screen.

"Everything is in order?" she asked aloud for the benefit of her human servants, Jethera included, Malcolm noted.

"Everything, my Queen," he answered. "The four lesser commanders and their phalanxes that will transfer to your sisters' Hives are prepared and waiting, and tribute has been gathered according to custom."

_=you will watch the Red Queen. She has a tendency to breed a line of Queen-killers, and it is rumoured that her eldest son attends her now – in place of her consort-commander=_

_{he will be guarded against, as will your sister}_

"Excellent," the Queen said. "Then I see no need for further delay."

_{the Raven Queen has sent a coded message requesting a private audience, my Queen}_

_=denied. Whatever my dear sister has to say to me can be said in open Conclave=_

"I will inform the others to meet us at the airlock," he said.

_=the others? What of the Blood Queen and the Shadow Queen?=_

_{we have heard nothing. They have not made their position clear}_

"We shall see what we shall see," the Queen said, holding out her hand. He knew she was waiting for him to offer his arm in courtly fashion, and for the first time turned his attention fully her way.

She had certainly arranged herself to appear the Queen of power that had summoned the others to conclave. The drapes of soft leather and lace with which she had draped her body flowed like water down her tall, lithe frame, to pool around her ankles like liquid ice. When she moved her head, her braided, beaded hair rattled with the sound of some great predator, giving warning to an unsuspecting lesser creature that had strayed too close, and the dark-light that illuminated the operative bridge glinted off the blades, carried both openly and concealed about her person. If he did not know her better, she would have been an intimidating sight. Instead he inwardly nodded – almost approving.

The lingering traces of her Zenith had finally faded. Perhaps it had not been so ill-timed a summons after all. It would certainly suit his purpose to have her proclaimed as Primary among the Elder Queens.

* * *

><p>He should have been cold. The wind that whistled crosswise over the south pier, blowing from the north-east, carried with it the promise of New Lantea's winter and slipped insistent fingers around the folds of Carson's unfastened jacket. He barely felt it.<p>

After the ambient, carefully controlled temperature of Michael's laboratory followed by the almost overwhelming heat in the isolation wing of Atlantis' infirmary, the variation of it was a welcome relief; a welcome relief, also against the emotions hissing inside of him like boiling acid, a match to the wind driven waves that broke against the side of the pier.

He didn't realise quite how rapid his steps were until the sound of Ayatesha's hurried footfalls reached him through the wind. It sounded as though she was almost running to keep up and even as he tried to slow down, she hooked her fingers around his elbow.

"Carson, wait," she said, "Stop. This does no good."

The realisation hit and halted him far more effectively than Ayatesha's tenuous hold on his arm. He was trying to run: from the horror they now faced in Jennifer's pregnancy; from the deal he'd had no choice but to make with Michael and from the responsibility he carried in what he had done in bringing them all this far in the first place… and Ayatesha… his sweet Y'tesha. Here she was at his side once again reaching for him; once again with him to save him from himself.

He stopped so suddenly that when he turned to face her she almost collided with him, slipping to a halt with her hand pressed against his chest. The touch was like a key; like a chisel breaking open the cage of seething confusion that was scattering him to the six piers. She grounded him and suddenly one thought, one feeling alone, filled him.

"Carson, this—"

He reached for her, cupped his still warm hands around the softness of her cheeks and brought their lips together, silencing her half formed protest in a kiss born of everything she meant to him.

The warm velvet touch of her lips pressed to his, and parted in a sweet rush of shared breath. She yielded to the caress of his tongue against hers and her trust soothed him, her acceptance gave him place and bolstered his purpose. She gave him the precious gift of a moment's peace.

Breathless as the kiss ended, he leaned his head against hers, their noses almost crushed together; her head still cradled in his hands.

"This is not your fault," she whispered against his cheek. The words were almost desperate in their softness. "This is not your fault."

"Y'tesha." He sighed her name, the prayer-like devotion in the tone he used the first step in a separation toward rationality. He wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and surrender to a moment of needing her as badly as he ever had, but they had promised never to cheapen what they shared with such thoughtless abandon. He wouldn't betray that now. He couldn't.

She must have sensed the change in him, because her hands, which had knotted in his shirt, relaxed and the touch against his chest became almost a caress. He swallowed, and pulling back a little gave her a wan smile. She shook her head and reached up to caress the side of his cheek.

"How can you be so… so steady, so—"

"I am as I need to be to help Jennifer," she answered. "Carson, inside I am as frightened as you, but—"

She broke off then, shaking her head and he saw her eyes become veiled, as though shutting off some part of herself.

"What's wrong?" he asked, frowning.

She shook her head again, and turning from him started to walk again. Still frowning, he turned to follow, but stopped as the shadow of a movement in the lea of the pier's central strut caught his eye. Anyone else might have missed the motion, or dismissed it as the play of cloud and fading day, but Carson had spent too long around Michael for such things to go unnoticed.

"Ayatesha?"

He quickly fell into step with her, reaching to take her hand in his securely, and subtly guiding her steps away from the pier's centre that would provide cover for their unwelcome tail.

"Being frightened isn't going to help; not Jennifer, not _anyone_. We—"

"No, I mean what's going on?" he interrupted. "Has someone been bothering you?"

Even as he asked the question, he had a suspect firmly visualised. It didn't take a genius to work it out, after all.

"It is nothing," she said, and though she had clearly tried to sound dismissive, he knew her too well for her to hide the fearful undertones her voice carried.

"Then why are we being followed," he drew her closer as she started to turn her head, "No. Don't… don't turn around."

"Honestly, Carson," She pressed closer still, her fingers tightening around his, "I do not know. Professor Varnerin and I do not see eye to eye, and have had cross words on several occasions but—"

"Oh, that's enough, believe me, love," Carson said with a humourless laugh, but something – some unwelcome touch of prescience – fluttered along his spine. _That's not the whole of it_. He stopped walking and turned her to face him. "Y'tesha, this is _me._ If this is something to do with what happened on Earth; what's in that file they're holding over your head—"

Her trembling fingers pressed against his lips.

"Please, Carson," she said, "do not ask me to tell you about that."

"Why not?" he leaned toward her as if to be closer would allow him to catch the quietest of whispers. "Whatever it is it can't be so bad that I wouldn't understand."

"Because I _love_ you," she answered, "do you understand that? Inti ya hayati, and I _will not_ do this to you."

"Do _what, _Ayatesha?"

"I cannot," she stumbled over the word and pulled away from him, her eyes filling with unshed tears. "Please just accept that."

"Wait," he tried to catch her as she ducked past him, but she was too fast, and he was left standing alone, and calling out helplessly after her. "What are you afraid of?"

* * *

><p>The Hives' landing left the ground underfoot scorched and desolate. The barren valley, artificially formed in the centre of the mountainous ring of ships surrounding the meeting place was still being sculpted as the delegations made their way toward the central space. Teams of subordinate Wraith and drones alike scurried to erect the five, huge daises – organic Wraith compounds oozed across the space and began building the stage on which the future of Pegasus would be shaped – at least in part.<p>

Jethera shivered, supremely uneasy as she hurried along behind the Elder Queen and her Consort-Commander, the former Hive Second, now promoted by the death of the previous commander, and by his claiming of the Hive's zenith-driven Queen. Handmaiden to any one of these queens was not the safest position to occupy.

_{hold your ground}_

At her commander's orders, Jethera and the delegation behind her halted as one, and the Queen and Commander went on alone toward the others. It was ritualistic; posturing between queens, between their commanders – lip-service to a past as forgotten in time as was the genesis of the Wraith. Jethera let out her breath slowly, banishing her thoughts and the fear that was growing inside of her. It was as dangerous for her to have such things in her mind, where they might be overheard, as it was for her to remain in the service of the Elder Queen.

It was time to find another way, another place to be… another place to hide… another queen.

She lifted her head to look on the circle of the five Wraith queens before her. Their age, and the deadly nature of their existence was not easily missed. Of the five of them that Jethera could see, besides her own Elder Queen, one other had hair as white as sun-bleached bone, though this one did not braid her hair but left it long about her shoulders, accenting, rather than masking the blood red tattoos that graced her flesh. She wore a red-tanned leather dress that accented her form, and carried herself with the arrogance of her age. This Red Queen's commander stood stiffly at her shoulder, the only one among them, Jethera knew, from what she had overheard aboard her own Hive, who was not consort to his queen. He was one of her progeny – a son.

Another of the queens had tightly braided her blue-black hair and sculpted it atop her head to sit like some ancient crown almost in the shape of a great winged bird. The same dark indigo lines of her clan tattoos descended the side of her neck, and over her naked shoulders; pale green flesh almost luminous against the contrasting darkness. What little she wore was made of pliant, overlapping tongues of leather and soft metal, like some great perversion of scale-mail, or the skin of an unfortunate black dragon out of legend. The Raven Queen's Consort-Commander stood at her side, one hand raised to support the claw-tipped fingers that perched over his, as if he would present her in courtly fashion to the assembly; the other rested easily against the hilt of the blade he carried sheathed at his waist.

A third queen stood across from the others. Soft pale folds of linen draped the curves of her darker, grey-green skin. Her dark red hair, partly braided, and in greater part left free trailed like rivulets of blood over her attire, and between the dark of her skin, the light of her clothes and the sanguine fall of her hair, peaked the silver-blue lines of her clan-marks, shining slightly in the low light. The Blood Queen's Consort-Commander oozed contempt for his fellow males. His expression, a languid sneer, spoke of his certainty of their unworthiness to be in his presence… or more correctly, in the presence of his queen, though more than once, as she observed him, Jethera noticed that his eyes flicked toward the last remaining member of the conclave.

The Shadow Queen stood a full head shorter than the others, almost entirely shrouded by the fall of grey from the hooded robe she wore. The hood was raised, leaving little visible within its dark depth, save the piercing flash of her peacock eyes, as often luminous green as they were burning amber. Her Consort-Commander stood protectively, possessively close, almost touching, and the dull-silver mail he wore over the leather of his jerkin added to the visible sense of menace he conveyed. _Approach my Queen, and die_. His queen raised her clawed, almost dark, scaled hand and pointed at the Elder Queen.

"You have called this Conclave, this… convocation," she hissed. "Let you among us be first to offer tribute."

* * *

><p>She didn't stop running until she reached her quarters, then closed and locked the door – wrenching open the panel at its side to pull out the crystals… fearing that if Carson followed he would simply think open the barrier she'd put between them… the flimsy lies the Ancients had wrought in the design of their city were little protection from the truth that hung over both of them, a sword waiting to fall.<p>

Seeding life… altering evolution… arrogance – all lies – as arrogant as the actions of her own kind.

She leaned against the closed door, pulling at the confinement of her clothing; at the hijab that covered her head – stifled by it all, and slid down to lean, gasping with the sobs that wracked her body, against the solid surface at her back.

_She took a step back, only to collide with the soldier that had been summoned behind her. "I already told you that I cannot do what even God cannot."_

_The soldier took her arms – held her fast._

_"I told you," she cried as the team leader stepped toward her, a small cylinder in his hand. "I TOLD YOU!"_

_The sting of the needle was nothing against the fire it spread through her body, and even after the practise against the two years of torture, both mental and physical, this time she could not contain her scream… half of pain and half in the terror of realising what they had administered to her._

_"Clean up this shit hole – give her space to work… and make sure there's someone on hand at least once every 24 hours to give her the clean retrovirus." She barely heard the team leader's words through the pounding of her too-fast heartbeat. "Does us no fucking good if she goes rogue and tries to kill us all."_

_"What have you done?" she panted, leaning on her trembling legs as the soldier behind her let go. "What have you—?"_

_The team leader grabbed her hair and pulled her head back just as the strength in her limbs failed and she toppled to her knees._

_"Yung managed to piece together enough of your rambling objections over the last few months to be able to adapt Beckett's retrovirus. He built a serum that would administer a fractional segment of the Wraith genetic code into the subject and—"_

_"My God," she gasped. "How many?"_

_"That doesn't matter," he anticipated her question. "What matters is—"_

_"How many died?" she screamed, her vocal cords constricting around the words._

_"Seems you were right. Seems like the resulting DNA is too unstable. Some of them went into shock; some of them almost literally dissolved from the inside out; some of the others went mad with the pain of it and the more successful of the subject – well, their new Wraith cells literally fed on the human ones that were left. Yung was the last," he said, and the calm in his voice chilled her to the last dregs of her soul. He lowered himself to his haunches at her side, never once letting go, dragging her terrified eyes around to meet the cold fanaticism in his. "How many died? All of them."_

"All of them," she whispered, twisting the hijab in her hands. "And I did nothing… _nothing_ to spare them." _…except from this…_

Her conscience warred with itself… she had done as she had had to do, there was no other choice, and only a cruel, coincidental twist of circumstances had prevented her from finishing what she had started.

* * *

><p>Michael remained in the doorway… immobile, even when he felt the Hive drop into normal space, and the sub-light engines engaged. He knew he could trust his hybrids to manoeuvre the ship through the system and into orbit around the planet that was their destination. He did not once take his eyes off the figure sleeping, somewhat restlessly, in the quarters' large bed.<p>

"Leave us," he ordered, keeping his voice quiet as he did not wish to wake Teyla. The figure sitting in the chair beside the bed rose to her feet at once, and started toward him – toward the door.

"I have tried to soothe her rest," Midani told him, "but nothing brings her comfort."

"No matter," he answered, shaking his head slightly. He knew it was not the woman's fault that she could not reach Teyla. Her body was driven by other stresses; he swallowed hard, other strains. "Go to your own rest. Perhaps Teyla will wish to accompany you when you visit with your family."

She lowered her head in respectful acknowledgement, and slipped past him. He closed the door behind her and quietly padded across the room, slipping off his heavy outerwear and making himself more comfortable as he lowered himself into the chair that Midani had just vacated. Almost as if she knew he was there, Teyla turned toward him in her sleep, and seemed to settle – if only a little.

He let out a long, slow breath and moved his gaze over Teyla's sleeping form. He did not miss the slight tremor in her body, even at rest, nor the tiny beads of perspiration that had gathered on her brow. His soft sigh became a voiced, protective rumble in the back of his throat and moving carefully he slipped from the chair to kneel at the side of the bed and reached out toward her.

His fingers almost brushed against the damp hair at her forehead, until he caught sight of his own smooth palm. He snatched his hand away, and curled his fingers against the sight. He had done what he had to do in order to ensure survival, evolution, but now the very changes he had fought so hard to make prevented him from providing the woman before him with something she so sorely needed. He let out a faint sound, a huff against the bitter irony of it all, and reaching out carefully once more, brushed the fine strands of hair away from Teyla's face.

Prevented was not… entirely true. There was another way, but… it was unsettling to him, such contact – at such a time – he baulked at it only in concern for her.

Another, more extreme, option remained, hovering like a spectre of his past. The very real possibility that he may have no choice but to take it mocked him, but he feared it – so terribly – the lack of surety that she would not suffer The Passing holding him away from taking such a step. It was a last resort, only to be considered if the field test of the serum failed to give the desired results.

"Michael…" Teyla's drowsy whisper to him momentarily startled him, but his hand slipped behind her, supporting her carefully as she leaned up toward him. They moved as one, and she leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. "I was dreaming."

He nodded wordlessly, and tipped his head in concern as she looked up at him.

"I can hear—"

"I know," he interrupted softly. "But you need to rest."

…_I need you…_

_-yes-_

He rose from his knees beside her and gathered her closer against him as he moved to join her. He felt her trembling subside as she fit herself against him; within the protective shelter and warmth of his arms.

"We've left hyperspace," she murmured against his neck.

"Yes."

"Where are we going?"

He hissed softly as her fingers slipped beneath his shirt to rest against his chest. Her hands were cold. She was cold. He tried not to become distracted by the worry inherent in that realisation.

"A planet under my protection," he told her softly. "It is where many of my followers remain. I thought perhaps you might like to visit with Midani's family once we arrive."

"And you?" she asked.

He turned them both until he was looking down at her; gently but firmly tilted her gaze up until their eyes met, before he answered.

"There is work I must attend to, Teyla," he said with such seriousness and gravity that he saw and felt her almost shy away from him.

_-trust me-_

…_yes…_

He smiled then, softly… slowly, and almost absently caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb, he lowered his lips to meet hers as he moved to cover her.

* * *

><p>"Doctor Beckett," Varnerin greeted Carson as he stormed through the barely opened door to the man's office. "Decided to complete a debrief after al—"<p>

"I don't know what you think you're playing at," he said, and leaned down to spin the man away from his desk and pin him in place, one hand on each of the arms of the chair in which Varnerin sat. "But I'm warning you… leave. Ayatesha. Alone!"

"Perhaps it's time you—"

"No," Carson refused to relent. "I told you before: I won't have members of my medical team harassed. You're having her _followed_ for God's sake!"

"And have you stopped to ask yourself why?" Varnerin asked overly calm, "or have you simply stormed in here, assuming that I'm the villain; the guilty party. Did you ever _read_ the file that Dick Woolsey gave to you the day Doctor Haddad arrived in Atlantis? No? Well I did."

Carson growled and pushed himself away from Varnerin, stalking half way across the room before he turned back and pointed an accusing finger the other man's way.

"I didn't come here to listen to your lies and insinuations," he spat. "Y'did enough damage on that front wi' Teyla and the things you said about her."

"She _stole_ your research." Varnerin got to his feet, and extracting a file from the stack on his desk, pushed it over toward him. "And by 'stole' I mean she completely eradicated all trace of its existence from the SGC mainframe, and then she ran; disappeared for a little over two years, before she was picked up, badly injured, in the ruins of a covert military installation somewhere in the heart of the Middle East."

"What?" Incredulity ran through Carson, like a drone exploding, and demonstrative of his absolute contempt for the story he was hearing, he lashed out at the file, sending it flying from the desk, scattering the pages like windblown leaves. "You are talking absolute—"

"Nonsense?" Varnerin came around the desk, his eyes scanning the tumble of papers on the floor of the office. "I'm sorry, Carson, but much as you might think you know the woman… it's all here."

He reached down and picked up a small sheaf of papers, clipped together in the corner with a staple. Carson could already see that much of the information on the copy had been blacked out, and a red, 'eyes only' stamp fit diagonally into the spaces. He eyed the papers as though they carried some incurable disease that would be transmitted at the slightest touch of the papers.

"Take it," Varnerin said quietly, "if you don't believe me."

"Covert military installation? Ayatesha?" Carson made no attempt to take the papers, even when Varnerin offered them a second time, more forcefully. "This is utterly ridiculous."

"There was absolutely no record of what she was doing there," Varnerin continued even as Carson denied him, seemingly relentless in his attempt to make him listen. "And no data was recovered from the wreckage of the computer system they found, but acting on a snippet of intelligence intercepted during the attempted invasion of Earth by the Wraith via the Midway station, SG-1 tracked a covert paramilitary group to the secret installation in the Middle East. However, by the time they got there, the installation and its personnel had been destroyed, and Doctor Haddad was discovered amid the wreckage."

"No," Carson poked past the papers, his finger digging into Varnerin's chest, "I can see where you're going with this, and I won't have you falling into the assumption that simply because she was born an Egyptian Muslim, she has to be some kind of terrorist."

Varnerin raised his voice, and in return Carson raised his, until both men were shouting at each other.

"You can't refute the facts, Doctor!"

"And you have _no_ idea what she went through—"

"Warrants were issued for her arrest."

"—in her past that _completely_ turned her off—"

"Her assets were seized."

"—radicalisation in _any_ way, shape or form—"

"She was completely missing for two whole years, while—"

"—and this kind of baseless accusation is just the kind of—"

"GENTLEMEN!"

Woolsey's voice cut them both to silence with the efficiency of a scythe at an Athosian harvest, a silence that was broken only by the rustle of the paper that Varnerin still held until Woolsey spoke again.

"Take it, Carson," he said, "please."

Hesitantly, Carson closed his fingers around the edges of the report, barely feeling the smoothness of the paper, as Woolsey came to stand beside him. Nor did he truly register the words that Woolsey spoke to him, not at first, as he glanced at the report and seven words stood out starkly against the boxed in, blacked out text of the classified information around them… _category 4 – very seriously ill or injured_.

"As you can see, much of the information is classified, even from those of us with the highest security clearance. It's need to know and apparently, we don't… and while I don't necessarily agree with Professor Varnerin's interpretation of some of the facts that we _do_ know, for the sake of base security, I've asked him to keep an eye on her… for the time being." Woolsey said softly.

"Category four…" Carson breathed, looking up from the paper and for the first time meeting Woolsey's eyes.

"With the Odyssey unable to assist at the time, she was flown directly to a military hospital in Iraq and treated under the supervision of Doctor Lamb. According to Carolyn's report, Doctor Haddad was exposed to some kind of biological contaminant and as a result developed an extremely virulent form of cancer. She was transferred back to a location in the United States under strict quarantine, and after several months of extensive treatment, and coinciding with the conclusion of the investigation into her alleged involvement in activities prohibited by the Geneva Convention pursuant to—"

"Did they find a cure?" Carson interrupted.

"I would have thought the appropriate question at this point would be concerning her acquittal of such—"

"Please, Reuben," Woolsey glanced at the other man and frowned. "Isn't it obvious that they did? Otherwise she wouldn't have been transferred to Atlantis to—"

"Actually, Richard, it's not obvious at all, and this is what I keep trying to tell you," Varnerin interrupted. "Following her release from quarantine at the SGC laboratory facility, she was due to have been sent into exile in Eg—"

"_Voluntary_ exile, yes," Woolsey said and Carson couldn't help the shiver that passed down his spine as he recalled the moment Ayatesha stepped from the event horizon… and the security officers that had followed her. The moment of doubt was only brief, but it squeezed a fist around his heart. "And to answer your question, Carson, Ayatesha's cancer appears to be fully in remission."

The breath that rushed from him was exhausting, and it was all that Carson could do to keep his suddenly blurred vision from giving away the tears that had gathered in his eyes. Alongside the relief, however, a heavy, sinking sense of loss and betrayal sat like a stone in his gut. Why hadn't she told him any of this? To keep such a thing as her illness from him after everything else they had shared; the promise of all they _could _have shared…

He swallowed hard. He had to talk to her – and to Carolyn. He had to find out the pathology of this thing, the details, the… treatment… and suddenly his mind spiralled off along cold dark alley ways of fear and imagined horrors of recurrence.

"You'll excuse me, Richard," he said, keeping his voice tightly controlled, and handing the stapled report back to the base commander. "There are… there are things I must attend to."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heels and hurried along the corridor from Varnerin's office, past the Conference Room and into the Control Room.

"Amelia, I need to speak to Doctor Lamb at Stargate Command as soon as possible. It's urgent," he said. "You can patch it through to me as soon as you have her."

"Of course, Doctor," She said, and then added quickly, "Actually, Doctor Beckett, while you were with the professor and Mr Woolsey, the infirmary got in touch trying to get hold of you. You were off comm. and I didn't want to bust into the middle of—"

She shrugged apologetically, and Carson gave her a smile and dropped a sympathetic hand onto her shoulder.

"What was it?" he asked.

"It's Doctor Keller," Amelia said quietly, as though she didn't want to be overheard. "She's awake."

* * *

><p>The flight from the 'Gate had taken a little under an hour, and already dusk was falling on the small copse beyond which the cloaked Jumper lay hidden. Sheppard held the P90 slung across his body, belying the nervousness with which he gripped the weapon, and turned full circle once more, checking the location of each member of the small team he'd brought with him… and Ronon; Ronon had insisted on coming.<p>

Sheppard stood for a moment, watching his friend; watching the tension in Ronon's body, trying to imagine what was going through the Satedan's mind. There was so much that Ronon didn't know; that Sheppard hadn't had the time – or more to the point the _privacy_ to tell him. He didn't know that Teyla was still alive; about Keller's collapse, and now to add to the anger all of that was sure to kindle in him, there was a little girl lying in the infirmary, barely hanging onto life, who was obviously important to Ronon. It all added up to one thing in Sheppard's book: trouble. He could only pray that Ronon would keep a lid on his anger, and try not to take it all out on Todd. As much as he hated to think it, Ronon could prove to be a liability on this ride.

Ronon looked skyward, first one way and then the other as if searching the clouds. It wasn't hard to guess what he was watching and waiting for.

"He's already here, Ronon," he said, trying to pitch his tone to the cocky bravado that he usually displayed.

"How do you know?" Ronon growled.

"This is Todd," he answered with a shrug. "When have you ever known Todd get to a meeting after us. He thinks it gives him an advantage to get here first… scout the grounds… take us by surprise."

"And you believe otherwise?"

Sheppard groaned inwardly as the rattle of four P90's and the high pitched ring of Ronon's blaster charging came as a retort against the irritatingly smooth tones of the Wraith's voice. Todd dropped – literally – into their midst, to land in a crouch from among the high branches of the trees.

Todd spread his hands to his sides as he straightened up, cocking an eyeridge in an almost amused fashion at Sheppard.

"Come now, Colonel Sheppard, do you really expect me to have left myself so vulnerable as to drop into your little… soiree… unprotected?" As he spoke, from other trees around them, and from concealed pits at the edges of the copse, several Wraith drones with staff weapons revealed themselves. "Might I suggest we all… stand down? After all, you wanted information – and that I cannot give you if you shoot me, now can I?"

Sheppard opened his mouth to order his team to stand down, but Ronon pushed away from the tree against which he was leaning and stormed toward Todd, batting aside the drone that moved into his path and closing in on the Wraith commander until he could press the muzzle of his weapon against Todd's head.

"I'll take my chances," he spat. "Where is she?"

"Ronon!" Sheppard warned, at the same time waving his hands in a downward motion at the other Atlantis personnel. Ronon took no notice. "Ronon, stand down!"

Todd didn't even flinch.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he purred mildly, though Sheppard somehow doubted that. It didn't take a genius to work out that Ronon was angry because someone he cared about was missing and that usually, when someone went missing, it was the Wraith that were to blame. Couple that with the message he had sent when contacting Todd, it should have been pretty easy to put the pieces together – and while he wouldn't admit to calling the Wraith a genius, he was certainly prepared to admit that he was anything other than stupid.

"Ronon," Sheppard tried again, "put the gun down."

"Not until he tells me what I need to know!" Ronon sounded as though he was snatching the words out of the jaws of his fury and frustration.

"When I agreed to come here, Sheppard," Todd growled softly, clearly bored and becoming irritated by his treatment at Ronon's hands, "it was not to find myself accused, groundlessly, of the abduction of some random—"

"She's _not_… random…" Ronon snarled, shifting his grip against the weapon's hilt.

Sheppard swallowed hard. He knew Ronon; knew the signs. Ronon was close to losing control, and if he did and fired the first shot, Sheppard had no doubt that the massacre that would occur in the moments afterward would make the old legend of the Battle of Camlan look like a teddy bear's picnic.

"All right, Ronon," he said in the most soothing tone he could muster and stepped toward where Todd and the Satedan stood in the tense stand-off. "Let him go. We can talk about thi—"

"Laquoia," Ronon spat. "The culling—"

"I know nothing about a culling on the Laquoian homeworld," Todd's rumbling voice held more irritation with every answer that he gave. Sheppard tried to fix an apologetic expression on his face, hoping that Todd would understand that Ronon's actions were not undertaken with his blessing. Todd ignored him and continued, "And even if I did, Laquoia does not fall within my territory. My Hive is not responsible, nor do I know by which Queen Laquoia is ruled."

Ronon growled; clear frustration creased his brows as the volume of his wordless protest increased. Sheppard realised he was out of time, and much as he hated to appear to side with Todd against his friend, he planted a hand firmly in the middle of Ronon's chest and pushed hard.

"Ronon, stand down, damn it!" he turned his back on Todd, putting himself between the Satedan and the Wraith. "He doesn't _know_ anything."

Relief flooded through Sheppard, but mixed with an almost painful twisting in his gut when Ronon put up his weapon, and still growling, paced away.

"What's going on, Todd?" Sheppard asked without turning around, still keeping his eyes fixed on Ronon, fearful that the Satedan might have a sudden change of heart. "What _do_ you know?"

The hairs on the back of Sheppard's neck rose at Todd's low, slowly spoken answer.

"You presume too much upon our… friendship… John Sheppard," he rumbled.

Sheppard turned slowly, managing to hold his ground as Todd reached for him with his feeding hand, letting out a breath only when the clawed hand threaded through the fastenings of his TAC vest and then it was only a small huff of relief, curtailed as the Wraith pulled him closer and leaned down to snarl into his face.

"The affairs of Wraith do not concern you, human," Todd almost whispered the words. The three interlinked tones in his voice weaving a miasma of fearful confusion around Sheppard's senses. "Take my advice. Stay well away from where you do not belong."

He felt a familiar and yet unpleasant push against his mind; found himself momentarily unable to draw breath, and struggled to close his fingers around Todd's grasp, trying to pry the Wraith's hand away from his vest.

"You don't understand," he gasped, still pulling ineffectually against the hold Todd had on him. "Those people… those worlds…"

"If there are people on any world specifically threatened by Wraith at this time—"

"You _know_ there are, Todd. Don't play games."

"I play at _nothing_!" Todd raised his voice and suddenly released Sheppard. Unbalanced he stumbled back, his arms flailing. His P90 slapped painfully against his already straining chest. The impact winded him. Anger flared in the Wraith's eyes and, voice still raised, Todd continued. "I came here in good faith, John Sheppard, and have received nothing but abuse and accusation. Our debts were paid long ago – Lantean – I. Owe. You. _Nothing._"

Sheppard took a breath, meaning to protest, to find the words to try and soothe the Wraith's frayed temper, but Todd moved fasted. First flicking his wrists, the Wraith raised both his hands, bringing them together more quickly even than Ronon could raise his already charged weapon.

There was a sound like lightning splitting the air around him and a sudden flash of light, then all Sheppard knew was darkness.

* * *

><p>"Alarmist rumours spread by frightened prey!"<p>

Malcolm stiffened even though he tried not to react to the naïveté of the Blood Queen's dismissive statement – _naïve or desperate_ he thought wryly and subtly shifted his weight to his other foot, bringing him imperceptibly closer to his own queen's shoulder.

"He remains alive," the Elder Queen insisted softly.

The Raven Queen shook her head, refusing to hear the Elder Queen's words, and Malcolm sighed.

"They believe the shadow of Atlantis no longer threatens us and so they conjure this new spectre from fragments of our concerns and try to use it to keep us away." The Raven Queen flicked a hand toward the Elder's throne, and announced to the others, "The Abomination is dead; killed in the explosion that destroyed her Hive."

Malcolm couldn't help but feel there was an air of proclamation in her words, and he bristled. The Hive had been destroyed through the stupidity of his predecessor, but its loss still stung hard. He took a deep breath, ready to speak in defence of his queen and her Hive, but she raised her hand and he could feel her clear anticipation of his purpose in the touch of her mind against his. He fell silent, but moved with her as she rose to her feet, and descended the few steps of her dais to the speaking ground below.

As she moved, the Shadow Queen's sibilant husk of a voice whispered like fog around the assembly.

"I have… doubts of his demise," she said. "Rumour is a… dangerous bedfellow. Tell us, Sister, what happened. How did he… escape… your Hive?"

"My explanation will show you," the Elder Queen began, "the folly of your belief in both the diminution of the threat from the new inhabitants of Atlantis, and the supposition of the death of The Abomination. He lives, and for whatever reason they have…"

The Queen's words faded from his attention as a chill crept over Malcolm. It was almost a physical sensation, but for the recognition of the touch of a queen within his mind, drawing him inwards. By mutual decree, such contact was forbidden during the convocation, and he knew he should have spoken out, however, curiosity and a deeper purpose cautioned silence, and – carefully – he allowed the contact, transferring his consciousness to the inner chambers of his mind.

_{you risk much, Old One}_

He knew, by the sensation of the mind-touch which queen it was that sought audience with him – and yes, he considered it to be in that manner and not the other way around.

_{if the others knew of your actions…}_

_'they are oblivious, First Consort, in many. More. Ways than just the knowledge of my actions, my purpose. Speak quickly now: this clever sophistry she weaves about the others. How much is true? Did the Lanteans come to free him? Did they succeed? What of this __**other**__; this… human queen?'_

_{you are remarkably well informed for one that can only possibly have heard what came to pass through rumour}_

The Shadow Queen appeared beside him, smoke and mirrors, he understood, but still, the chill in his entire being increased as she reached out a clawed supernumerary hand his way.

_'let us dispense with the formalities of such sparing' _Her mental presence snapped at him. _'you have not the time and neither have I the inclination. Speak __**quickly**__, answer my questions'_

_{first answer mine: what difference does the past make to you, who must live in its future? How can knowledge of what cannot be changed benefit your assay for Primary?}_

_'foolish male!'_

In spite of the automatic sting, inherent in the words, Malcolm sensed a certain… almost warmth in the reprimand.

_'I have little care to be Primary over this gaggle of self-serving sluts!'_

_{then what __**is**__ your care, Old One?}_

_'for our people, First Consort… the survival of Wraith'_

A warning pricked through the chilled awareness of his surroundings barely a second before the inner world dissolved and reality reasserted itself. Acting on instinct, Malcolm stepped forward to put himself between his queen and the approaching threat of the Red Queen and her son.

"You _knew_ of the existence of such a weapon and you kept your silence?" the Red Queen snarled, all but flying down the steps of her own dais.

"Come no further!" Malcolm ordered, lowering his hand to the hilt of his blade.

"But the weapon—"

"…is no more threat than any other, if certain protocols are followed!"

The Red Queen's son slipped around his matron, halting her forward motion with his trailing shoulder as he too fingered his blade, squared off against Malcolm. He had to admire the younger Wraith's devotion.

"Do not allow yourselves to be side-tracked by the notion of this weapon," Malcolm raised his voice, though he pitched it in respectful cadence to address the assembled queens. "Yes, it exists, and is formidable – deadly even – against a shielded Hive, for it turns the Hive's own power against itself, but it is easily disempowered by the lowering of shields."

"Lower our shields in battle?" The Red Queen's son's voice held no respect, only contempt.

"Wraith fought without shields for _many_ millennia, youngling." A new, harsher voice cut across the challenge, and Malcolm tilted his head to watch as the Shadow Queen's commander stepped to the edge of his queen's dais, but came no further.

"Indeed," the Raven Queen's commander stepped into the arena, like to the Shadow Queen's commander he only came as far as the end of the dais. "It is only another concession to _human weakness_ that made us capture and incorporate their technology into our already superior Hives."

"At the insistence of The Abomination," the Elder Queen spoke once more, seizing command of the discussion away from the posturing males. Malcolm stepped aside to give her full sight of the assembly. "Do not allow yourself to become side-tracked by the existence of this weapon, when _he_ is the real danger here."

"If he is such a real danger," the Red Queen waved her son aside, and more casually approached the Elder Queen, "how is it that we have heard nothing of him since the… unpleasantness which befell your Hive?"

"It is possible we have," the Elder Queen said, her tone almost accusing as she addressed the Red Queen and her commander. "Were you not engaged in battle in the Ataxis system?"

The Red Queen glanced at her commander, then before he could speak – as matters of conflict fell to the commanders to discuss – said, "We were, but we cannot be sure that it was not simply those of The Abomination's followers that outlived their master. They were… easy to deal with after all – scattered like some… Queenless drones."

"Indeed, when _you_ barely escaped with your life," the Blood Queen spoke up, not to be out-voiced by her fellow queens, turning attention back to the Elder Queen. Malcolm could feel her frustration from where he stood. "I find it difficult to believe that – injured and weakened as you have claimed – he could have found his way off your Hive."

"Without assistance," the Shadow Queen hissed, throwing the chaos of silence over the whole of the conclave.

The silence persisted for a long time, uncomfortable in its weight and implication, at least to Malcolm. He knew the others, beside his own queen, would have missed the full implication of the Shadow Queen's words; would focus only on the involvement of the Lanteans in the former Wraith Scientist's escape. Even now, surrounded by others who thought of him in such a way, Malcolm could not think of him as an abomination, let alone _The_ Abomination. He was not certain in which way he _did_ see his former Hive brother, however… he only knew that they were enemies now.

_'she is his queen, is she not – the one that assisted his escape?'_

Malcolm turned his eyes toward the Shadow Queen, as her voice echoed through his mind. He wanted to deny the words, but found himself unable to do so.

"Enough!" The Elder Queen snapped suddenly, and Malcolm feared that she had heard the private exchange, until she spoke again. "This continued digression does us no good."

"Agreed," the Raven Queen spoke again. "_If_ The Abomination still lives, where is he? Why have we not heard more from one who is _such_ a threat to Wraith?"

Her sarcastic tone was unmistakable, and she would have continued her tirade, Malcolm was certain of it, if the Shadow Queen had not derailed them all once more.

"The more pertinent question," she breathed, her voice a chill across the circle of thrones, "is to ask: what is his purpose."

_'why do you serve…?'_

* * *

><p>Teyla tensed in anticipation of the expected jolt; the transport ship landed as softly as down alighting on a gilded cushion and Michael turned his head her way, eyebrow cocked in amused query. She shook her head.<p>

He stepped down from the control station, and turning to her, offered his hand in invitation to join him as he made his way toward the ship's exit. Others fell into step behind them as she rested her hand over his; walked at his side.

By the time they had reached the airlock chamber, Teyla could no longer feel the background hum of the ship. _He does not anticipate any trouble._

"I believe you will find it most agreeable here," Michael said as though eavesdropping on her thoughts, "peaceful."

She smiled at him and nodded. "I look forward to taking in the air," she said.

He glanced at her and for a moment looked as though he would object, before he smiled tightly. _He worries._

"Of course," he said in place of the objection. It was meaningless, almost courtly banter, but underneath, Teyla felt their connection winding more securely around her. He worried for her, but felt a necessity for her to be away from the Hive – understood her need for natural, untreated air.

"The market place here is quite diverse in its wares," Midani offered from behind them. Michael glanced her way and then nodded as the thin sliver of sky became visible between the lowering hatch and the top of the ship's doorway.

"If there is anything you need…" he said, leaving the suggestion hanging.

"Michael…." Teyla couldn't help but smile in fondness at his answer to Midani's casual observation. She wanted to assure him of his more than adequate provision for her and said, "I want for nothing. We…" she corrected herself as she turned and took Nethaiye from Midani's arms, "want for nothing."

As he settled in her arms, Nethaiye reached for Michael. Michael gave the boy an awkward smile, and carefully brushed his fingers over the top of Nethaiye's head, smoothing down the fine shock of hair. Teyla felt a flush of contentment burst upon her awareness and then her son laid his head against her shoulder.

"Never-the-less," Michael said, suddenly turning his gaze away from them both. "If you should see anything you would like…"

Teyla laid a hand onto his arm, understanding and reassurance conveyed in the touch. It certainly would do no harm to visit the market place and see what might be there that she had not thought she might need: something for Nethaiye, perhaps.

"I will be at the laboratory if you should need me," he told her as the doorway came to rest on the ground, making a ramp down which Michael began to lead them. "Otherwise, I will find you – when it is time to leave."

Teyla looked out at the scene that had been unveiled by the opening of the transport ship's hatch. A small number of small dwellings stood on the outskirts of a larger settlement that stretched away ahead of them. Far from being cowed by their arrival, many of the people of the village continued about their daily routine, while others gathered in small groups, as though waiting.

It was to these groups that some from among the hybrids and freemen in Michael's contingent hurried. Smiles and greetings of happy relief began to bubble excitement into the air, and Teyla found she could not stop a widening smile from appearing on her face. A kind of relief of her own wrapped itself around her heart, for what she saw confirmed many of the things that Midani had told her.

Slowly, she made her way down the ramp toward the village. She felt Michael settle at her shoulder as she moved, ever present, ever protective, but she knew without a doubt – even as the first of the villagers reached for her – that it was unnecessary. None here would harm her.

"…It is you…"

"…She is here…"

"…I knew she would come…"

Astonished murmurs, filled with the hope reached her ears, as hesitant hands brushed against her arms, and shoulders. Hands reached for hers as though she were some kind of yogi to be venerated… and just as she began to feel uncomfortable, yet more drew her into their midst in welcome, like a long lost family member. She turned as she became surrounded, found Michael's eyes, and frowned, confused, perhaps a little more afraid.

_-they have been waiting to welcome you for a long time-_

Though he said nothing, the touching stopped, and space opened around her. Recovering herself, recalling other times and other places she had received such welcomes – as a trader for the Athosians; as a representative of Atlantis – she took a breath and turned back the small gathering of people.

…_I am just an ordinary woman, Michael, nothing more…_

"Thank you," she said aloud, raising her voice to include all of them as she spoke. "Truly, I am blessed to be among you."

_-they have been waiting-_

"I look forward to visiting with you… visiting your town and your market place. I am certain we will find much in common as we get to know one another."

"Come," Midani's gentle touch against her elbow startled her slightly. "Let me show you around. My people will not trouble you, and there are many things to see here."

"I would like that," Teyla said genuinely. "Thank you."

She turned to let Michael know that she would be fine in Midani's company, but as she looked for him, she could not see him. It was as though he had disappeared without a trace – or perhaps had never been there.

* * *

><p>The door hissed open, and Michael's rapid steps carried him into the heart of the laboratory complex even before the light had fully flickered into life, illuminating the stark metallic contrast to the natural green that shielded the facility from sight from the outside.<p>

"Time is short," he snapped to the few hybrids that had accompanied him, and to those minders that dwelled within the facility itself. "Let's get started."

"Subject 457 has begun exhibiting difficulties," one of the minders reported, "of the usual kind: cellular degradation, anaemia…"

Michael snatched the tablet from the man's hand and called up the report on her condition, scanning the text quickly. The information he sought was not contained within the file, and he snapped, "The foetuses?"

"Viable, according to the latest scans – except for one – sadly all life function in that one ceased several days ago."

Michael growled sub-vocally, running his eyes over the data again, looking for the key – looking for the one variance that could have caused the failure, the one difference. Nothing immediately presented itself. There would be nothing he could do.

"Shut down the subject," he ordered, "and transfer the viable young to generative pods. We'll see what we can salvage from this."

"At once," a hybrid scientist took back the tablet and moved away to perform his duties.

"The others?" Michael turned on the second scientist; the hybrid took a step back.

"All is proceeding well with the others," he answered, "They are producing genetic material for manipulation and transplant at the accelerated rate, just as you anticipated. Stasis does not appear to affect viability as it has in the past."

Michael nodded, "Good, see to it that they are exposed only to the enzyme of the Wraith donor with whom they were matched, and prepare the genetic material for transfer to the cloning facility. We must push forward with our plans."

"Very well," the scientist turned, prepared to go and do as he was ordered, but Michael stopped him with a thought.

"Subject 592 – bring her to me," he ordered, and then moved toward the genetic workstation, preparing to receive the subject into his care.

He watched her approach in the mirrored surface of the computer screen. She was as defiant as always, struggling against the restraints that they had forced upon her, and against the hybrid guards that accompanied her.

Turning, he saw her long dark hair was tangled, her rounded cheeks and angular jaw showed faded bruises and her sharp brown eyes were slightly unfocussed, showing lingering traces of the use of sedatives… all signs of mishandling, and he shot the hybrid scientist a disapproving look.

"She was… difficult," he said apologetically.

Michael turned the same, intense gaze on the woman. "You have been warned against your defiance. You only remain of use to me if you cooperate."

She spat at him, though missing by a significant distance, then pulling against the hybrids that held her tried to get closer to him.

"If that's supposed to frighten me, Genius, you're gonna have to try a lot harder than tha—" She broke off, the whole of her body twisting in reaction to the crushing mental presence Michael pressed against her.

Only when she was on her knees in the dust of the laboratory floor did Michael move closer to crouch before her and take a handful of her hair into his fist to pull back her head.

"Would you like me to try harder…" he snarled softly, "…Captain?"

* * *

><p>Keller felt at least a hundred percent better than she had in a long time. That, and the way the few medical staff that attended her seemed to avoid eye contact scared her. She reached out and caught Marie's sleeve as she started to move away after checking the monitors.<p>

"Marie, please," she said softly, "what aren't you telling me?"

"Doctor Beckett will be here soon," Marie answered. "Honestly, we should wait for him."

"Is it so bad?" Keller frowned, and tried to sit up, to reach for her notes that should have been at the bottom of her bed. The holder was empty. "Marie?"

"It's all right, Marie," Carson ducked around the curtained screen and put a hand onto Marie's shoulder, then released her to take Keller's hand between the warmth of his palms. "I'll take it from here."

"Anything you'll need, Doctor?" Marie asked as she nodded, and the nervousness twisted more tightly in Keller's belly.

"I don't think so," Carson answered, and he turned a serious expression of concern Keller's way. "Just a little privacy, please."

Marie nodded, and offered an almost sympathetic smile Keller's way. Keller couldn't help but think it was the kind of smile you gave to someone when you told them there was nothing you could do. She felt sick.

"Carson, please, just tell me," she said, swallowing down the feeling. "I know there's something going on. I can tell. I _work_ with these people."

Carson took a deep breath, not denying her words as he pulled up his characteristic rolling stool. As he sat down she noticed he carried a tablet computer with him.

"How are you feeling, Jennifer?" he asked, glancing at the tablet as she eyed it. "Let's start there, shall we?"

Keller swallowed. "Better," she said. "Better than I have in a very long time."

Carson nodded. "That'll be because we finally found a way to stabilise the cellular degradation that was happening as a result of the underlying pathology."

"How?" she asked. "What was it; how did you—?"

"How isn't important right now," Carson interrupted, and Keller thought she detected a flash of fearful pain in his expression. It made her feel guilty, without knowing why. What price had he paid? "The point is that it worked. Your system has stabilised – even if your sats have stabilised low, and we have no explanation for that. As of right now, given that you've made such a remarkable improvement, we're not overly concerned about that."

He looked down and took another breath. She didn't miss it.

"Then," she asked slowly, "what _are_ you concerned about? What's _wrong_ with me, Carson?"

Carson sighed.

"Jennifer," he started softly, "you're pregnant."

"What? No," she laughed, certain she'd heard him incorrectly. "You're wrong, I can't be. You didn't just say—"

"I'm sorry, love. There's no mistake." He frowned softly, and activated the tablet, pulling up a file, which he turned her way. "We checked the blood-work three times, and three separate qualified medical practitioners all reached the same diagnosis."

"Carson…" her laughter faded to a chuckle as her throat constricted; a hot buzzing crept up the sides of her neck. The chuckles became a string of painful ragged sobbing breaths. "Please, God, no!"

He set the tablet down and took her hand again. He felt warm against her suddenly freezing fingers and she gripped him as hard as she could. If she let go, the vacuum forming in the room around them would sweep her away. She snatched a breath, then another and another…

"All right, Jennifer," his voice – the soft, warm tones she knew so well – wrapped around her, "just breathe… slow breaths now… that's it…"

"I don't…" she gasped, and suddenly his concern, his caring tones – conflicting with the news he had just given – threatening to suffocate her; threatening to end _everything_ that she knew, pushed her beyond all but a single thought. "I don't… want it. I don't— get it… get it _out_ of me, I don't want it – Get it OUT!"

"Jennifer," he stood up and moved closer, and she shrank away.

"No," she cried. "Get it out. OUT!"

"Jennifer, I need you to calm down," his concerned tones became firmer. "I need you to calm down and listen to me."

"No!"

"Please, you need to—" She lashed out, and struck hard against his face, her hand balled not open. "Marie – a little help in here!" He caught her wrists, held her tightly, though he was still gentle. The rational part that lurked behind the terror occupying the rest of her mind didn't think for a moment that he could ever be anything less. "Listen to me, Jennifer."

Marie came to the other side of her bed, caught her other hand, careful of the IV, and held her gently.

"I'm sorry, Jennifer," she said softly. "Please try to relax."

"I will sedate you, if I have to," Carson said apologetically. "I don't wan—"

"WHY won't you _listen_ to me?" she screamed at him. "I don't. Want. This!"

Suddenly exhausted, she fell back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands, repeating the words over and over as if they could keep it all away from her, until the whispered words disintegrated into sobbing against the palms of her hands, and her whole body shook as if terribly cold.

Awareness dissolved in the wake of a sorrowing, terrible lethargy. She felt as if she were a stranger in her own body – drifting aimlessly and unable to escape a terrible nightmare… and for a moment – a single blessed moment… nothing.

When she opened her eyes from what seemed to her nothing more than a long blink, the nightmare had not faded. Carson sat once more on the stool beside her bed, carefully watching the monitors; the same serious expression of concern fixed on his face.

"Carson," she found she could manage little more than a whisper, no matter how much she cleared her throat. She blamed the terrible fizzing heat that still climbed either side of her neck; the terrible trembling fear that gripped her. He helped her to sip at a small cup of water, settled her again afterwards, into another long, slow blink.

_"Why not admit it?" he asked, his lips brushing against her neck as he spoke, "You are at least… curious…"_

_"But I… you…" She moaned, and could not help but shift against him as his other hand, his feeding hand left the surface of the bench to wrap around her, to come to rest, not against her chest, but low on her belly, over the fluttering she felt there, and skimmed lower still._

_She fell against the bench and lay, panting… breathless as Todd shrugged off the heavy leather coat and rose over her like some great dark sun. _

_"You fucking bastard!"_

_The fall of leather onto the floor sounded like the slap she wanted, so badly, to land on his smug green face. Instead she reached for him again, pulled him closer, her hands like ice while the rest of her burned with fever._

Gasping, drowning, she reached out, arms flailing; caught in the warmth of human hands… a soothing female voice murmured platitudes – softly… accented.

"All right, Jennifer… gently now. Take a breath."

"Carson…?" Keller opened her eyes into the concerned face of Doctor Haddad.

"He was called away," Haddad said quietly, "It is all right. One of us has been with you all the time."

"Can I sit up?" Keller wiped her face, wiping away the tears that wet her cheeks. "I'd like to sit up."

Haddad gave her a smile. "I see no reason why not," she said. "Marie…"

Keller reached out and took hold of the other woman, levered herself up while Marie came to adjust the pillows. The doctor held her gently, as she knew Carson would have had she but reached out to him, but something – some deeply buried kindred – made her shift her hold on Doctor Haddad's arms, press her head against the other woman's shoulder.

"I'm scared, Ayatesha," her voice cracked, and the words tumbled out of her as if they were some terrible admission and not the expression of an emotion that was more than natural… expected.

"I know you are, Jennifer," Ayatesha closed her own arms more gently around Keller's back, and smoothed her fingers over her mussed-up hair. "I know… but I promise we will help you through this. You are not alone."

"But… I don't understand," Keller could not stop the tears from falling, as much as she wanted to, as rational as she wanted to be. "Why won't you just do as I ask? I want a termination, Ayatesha. I don't want to have this… this—"

Ayatesha pulled away just enough to cup her tear-streaked face between her hands, smoothing away her hair, and wiping away the tears with a tenderness that was almost painful as she interrupted her.

"Jennifer, it is not that we _will_ not," she said, sadly, "it is that we _cannot._"

"What?" Keller hiccupped in confusion, "I don— why?"

"I will explain," Haddad answered, "I will show you, if you promise to be calm."

Keller nodded, feeling lost and broken – there was no more fight left inside her, even if she wanted to. She lay back against the pillows as Ayatesha turned to pick up the tablet that Carson had left at the bedside and activated it – opened a file and handed the computer to her.

"This is a scan we took just a few hours ago, to confirm our initial diagnosis," she said, and pointed to the screen. "You can see what we see, yes? Why we cannot do as you have asked?"

Jennifer looked, her stomach knotting in rising nausea, her hands trembling as she ran her fingers over the screen. In any other nightmare but the Pegasus Galaxy, it would have been impossible, she would _never_ have seen what she was seeing – engorged veins, spreading, invading tissues reaching way beyond the uterine wall.

"Oh God!" She dropped the tablet into her lap, covered her face with her hands and whined into the shaking cavern of darkness she created over her eyes. "Ayatesha…"

"I am sorry, Jennifer, truly," Haddad said softly, "In a best case scenario, to do as you ask we would have to perform a complete hysterectomy and BSO, which in itself is radical enough, but with the severity and level of the invading tissue, both Carson and I doubt we could perform the necessary surgery without…"

Keller reached for the tablet again, everything around her fading to a ghost of awareness as she stared at the image of the scan… her awareness pulled to focus on the tiny blurred foetus nestled at the centre of the sinewy web inside of her as she pressed her hand to her belly.

* * *

><p>Sheppard descended the stairs from the Jumper Bay with a spring in his step that he truly didn't feel, ignoring the clamour of Ronon's heavy footfalls behind him.<p>

"Well?"

Woolsey met them at the foot of the stairway, steering them both toward the bustle of activity in the Control Room – toward the main screen, which now showed the knot of Wraith Hives more clearly as the technicians continued to map the decrypted telemetry, and fit it with the incoming Intel from the relay stations in nearby systems.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing," Sheppard spat, "absolutely _nothing_."

"But you said—" Woolsey's voice rose in alarm and that, more than anything, made Sheppard look around at the screen again.

"Well _maybe_," he snapped, throwing a less than charitable look in Ronon's direction, "if Chewie here hadn't gone all… caveman on his ass he might have been a little more forthcoming."

"What do you mean?" McKay looked up from his workstation as he asked the question.

"The only thing that he _did_ say was that we had no business interfering with the affairs of the Wraith." Sheppard sighed. "Which makes it pretty much a given that there's _something_ going on."

"Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey said, leaning toward him and speaking urgently. "Are you telling me that in spite of your assurances to the contrary when you were trying to get me to authorise your speaking with him in the first place, Todd was unforthcoming with any _useful_ information?"

"I'm telling you that something's got him worked up," he pointed at Ronon, "and it wasn't just the fact that Ronon has his blaster shoved half way down his throat. Whatever this is…" he nodded toward the ever thickening swarm of dots on the screen, "… it has him practically running scared and if it bothers Todd, we need. To know."

"Then what would you propose, Colonel?" Woolsey asked. "It seems to me that you've already exhausted your one avenue of investigation and—"

"I'll take a Jumper," Sheppard pushed past Woolsey to stand beside the screen, "there's a 'Gate here: M3F-325. It's partially shielded by this nebula, and I doubt they'll be looking that way in any case. From there, using the cloak, I can—"

"No," Woolsey interrupted, "absolutely not. Doubts… suppositions; it's far too dangerous. I can't risk—"

"_You're_ not," Sheppard said, shaking his head. "It'll be my ass out there, Woolsey, because we _have_ to find out. We can't afford to hide behind _any_ excuse this time. So, I'm sorry, but I'm taking a Jumper and I'm going to gather some _hard_ Intel. so that we can make a considered decision about what we need to do and if that means that I have to land in the middle of some Wraith tea party and hide underneath the tablecloth, then that's exactly what I'll do."

"Are you done?" Woolsey asked, folding his arms, but looking pointedly displeased in Sheppard's direction, "because what you're proposing is not just stupid, it's—"

"Necessary," Sheppard said.

"Sheppard," McKay put in, stepping away from his computers, "I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you: we need the Intel, but don't you think you should give us a little more time to decode these files, I mean… what if they have something to do with what's going on here. What if they're some… big fat _sign_ saying, 'Danger, Will Robinson…' What if—"

"That's why _you_ should keep working on 'em while I head out there to investigate, McKay," Sheppard answered, clasping him on the upper arms, at the same time appreciative and dismissive of his concerns. "You know it makes sense. We're running out of time."

"I'm coming with you," Ronon said as he stepped up to Sheppard.

"Oh, 'cause that worked real well last time," Sheppard snapped as he stepped away from McKay.

"Listen," Ronon growled, "You're right, I may have lost it back there with Todd, but if you're going out there, you're gonna need backup."

"No," Sheppard said, refusing categorically. He wasn't going to allow anyone to go into danger with him. "I'm going alone."

"On the contrary, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey cut in, "If you're going at all, you're going to take Ronon and a small team with you. If you get into difficulties, I want you to at least have a _chance_ of getting out."

Sheppard grinned, and masking his frustration with teasing said, "Aw, Richard… I didn't know you cared." Then more seriously added, "Are you saying I have a go?"

Woolsey took a breath, and said, "So help me, Sheppard, if this goes south I'll—"

"It won't," Sheppard clapped him on the arm, blatantly ignoring McKay's expression of disapproval.

"Then yes, under the proviso that you take Ronon and the team – you have a go."

* * *

><p>"Its purpose?"<p>

Malcolm cringed as he – as he was sure the other Wraith had – detected the slight screech in the Elder Queen's incredulous question. It was a sign of weakness; of implied deception and it did not bode well for the continuance of the convocation. It did not bode well for her dominance of the conclave.

He glanced around to try and gauge the reactions of the others. The Red Queen would attack – this was the sign she was waiting for… and she possessed knowledge; had been informed of some of what had transpired aboard the Elder Queen's Hive while the former scientist had been their captive. The Raven Queen too… _what thread of alliance binds them?_

He felt himself drawn to the younger Wraith, the Red Queen's son, to find the other Wraith staring back at him. There was open hostility in the other Wraith's eyes, and curious, he pushed against the immature mental defences…

_"No closer, Ancient One," he ordered. "If there is something you wish to say to me, then you will use words."_

_"Very well," she chuckled again, with the same shrivelling menace behind her mirth, and with the side of her supernumerary hand, she pushed the dagger from between them, and paced away. In spite of himself, he followed._

_"Why do you serve?"_

Malcolm drew in a sharp breath, pulled quickly away, and hastily schooled his expression. That one had encountered the Ancient Ones… they had spoken with him – against all protocols – against the words of the Revered Matron.

_(+…numbered… be assured of that+)_

The words insinuated themselves in his withdrawing contact. Malcolm growled softly, and stiffened… hardening the expression in his eyes.

_{seek not to try me… young one}_

"Its purpose is as it always was," the Elder Queen's voice pierced his consciousness, drawing his attention, in part, back to the proceedings, but he would watch that one. He must. "He means to build an army for his own protection, and for our destruction."

"And yet," the Raven Queen interrupted, "you had him within your grasp and you failed to destroy him."

"So the question becomes," the Red Queen had an unmistakable look of triumph on her face as she spoke, and Malcolm's attention snapped back to the young Wraith that stood behind his queen's shoulder. "What is _your_ purpose in this?"

_{what is it that you think you know? Be __**very**__ careful of your path, Commander}_

_(+your warnings do not concern me… your treachery, Traitor, does+)_

"I _had_ no purpose other than to extract, from him, _all_ the information he possessed," The Elder Queen snapped; her anger made the lie convincing at least. "His facilities, his strongholds – I mean to _tear _down his pathetic rebellion once and for all!"

"I repeat," the Red Queen said, her tone calmly patronising and Malcolm shivered as the fingers of warning passed along his spine, "he was in your power for weeks, perhaps months of time and yet you. Did. Nothing."

"And now you would have us believe that he _survives?_" the Raven Queen mocked. "What do you _hide_ from us, Sister?"

"I hide no—"

"This debate and accusation serves us ill," the Shadow Queen interrupted, her voice a hissing rasp that stilled them all. With a relieved breath, Malcolm turned his attention to the eldest of the sisters. "It is digression – pointless… what we need is proof… or otherwise… of that one's survival – and to decide what we will do."

* * *

><p>Jethera felt smothered; suffocated as the other Wraith queen's suspicions closed in around the Elder Queen. It was time – past time – for her to make her move, but she knew that her withdrawal would be noticed. She would be missed.<p>

"You wish for proof?" the Elder Queen snarled at her sisters, stepping forward and gesturing impatiently toward the pathway leading to her Hive. "_Here_ is proof… Sisters!"

The sounds of a scuffle, a struggle grew closer, and Jethera held her breath. It seemed inconceivable to her that in the one moment she needed it most, the Queen herself had provided her with the distraction she needed to be able to leave.

"What is the meaning of this!" the Blood Queen demanded angrily as the two Wraith drones entered the sacred space of the conclave. They dragged between them the struggling figure of the hybrid from the former Wraith's scientist's army.

"You demanded proof," the Elder Queen came to the prisoner, and grasped the back of his head, by the hair, in her hand… it was the last Jethera saw of her queen, as she slipped behind the attendant drone guards, to hurry into the shadows between the landed Hive ships.

* * *

><p>Sheppard inched forward, holding his breath as if he feared the Wraith would hear if he sighed too hard. He pressed his back against the solid surface of what he thought was a thrust port on one of the massive Hives. It was a risk to have tried to get so close, but he needed to know – needed to hear – what was going on.<p>

He ducked back, pressing into the darkest shadow he could find as he spotted a small group of guards, moving toward the far end of the Hive, and signalled to the others to do the same… not daring to speak.

He might have a reputation for suicidal actions, but at that time, suicide by Wraith was _not_ on his list of things to do.

Finally unable to hold his breath any more, he leaned his forehead against the cooling Hive and blew it out, then realising the futility of trying to sneak past the many guards that stood between him and the area he knew he needed to reach, hissed quietly, "All right, guys, back it up… we're gonna have to do this a different way."

Instead, Ronon came closer and pressed to his side as he tried to see past him.

"What's going on?" Ronon asked.

"I said back it up," he said between clenched teeth, "before those guards swing around again."

"But we should—"

"Ronon, we're not getting any closer this way," he pushed against the Satedan. "There are too many—"

Struggles came closer; Wraith drones uncomfortably close, and Sheppard's only saving grace was that they were too busy struggling with a captive they held between them, a _strong_ captive, to notice him and Ronon in the lea of the ship.

As they passed by though, the captive raised his head and looked almost right at them. Sheppard shivered, and pressed back hard against his big friend, pushing the both of them right into the belly of the Hive.

"That's one of Michael's hybrids," Ronon hissed.

"No shit, Sherlock," Sheppard answered.

"We gotta find out what's going on," Ronon insisted.

"Not this way." Sheppard had to listen to his gut, which at that moment was turning like a dervish, and making him feel more than a little sick with apprehension. "This way, we're just gonna end up as dead as that hybrid."

He tugged on Ronon's shirt until the big guy capitulated, and followed him through the shadows, back to the scorched remnants of the ruined woodland surrounding the bizarre, star shaped landing of Wraith Hives.

"Damn it!" Sheppard spat as they reached the relative safety of the blackened vegetation and he began pacing back and forth. "I told you… I _told_ you there was something going on."

"We gotta get in there, Sheppard," Ronon paced after him, "since when is it like you to back away from something like this?"

"Run away?" He rounded on Ronon. "Is _that_ what you think I'm doing? You may not have noticed, Rambo, but there are half a dozed Hives back there. We can't just—"

"All the more reason to get in there," Ronon insisted. "They won't be expecting it. No one is crazy enough to walk into the middle of six or so Hives."

"Exactly, no one; me inclu—"

The whistle of Ronon's blaster charging cut off Sheppard's argument, barely a second before the slight body ploughed into him. Acting on automatic, he wrapped his arms around the figure, bearing them both to the ground, and then rolling to put himself on top, just as the retort of Ronon's weapon split the air twice in quick succession – dropping the pursuing Wraith into the ashes at the base of a nearby tree.

The woman, for a woman it was, struggled and began to cry out, but Sheppard quickly pressed his hand over her mouth.

"Easy… easy," he said quietly but with an urgency that reflected his tension. "I'm not gonna hurt you… take it easy."

The woman under him went limp, and nodded. He removed his hand, and eased away from her, only to have her scramble backwards until she hit one of the broken stumps.

"Please…" she craved, holding out a hand between them.

"No one here is going to hurt you," Sheppard said with quiet patience, and reached out to press his hand against the top of Ronon's blaster, which the Satedan had pointed in the woman's direction as soon as the Wraith were gone, shifting his aim away. "You were running from the Wraith; why?"

Sheppard reached down a hand to the woman, and hesitantly, almost like a frightened deer, she slipped her fingers into his. He watched her carefully as she rose to her feet, noting she was taller than he'd thought she was, and carried herself with a straight, almost courtly bearing. He admitted to himself, however, that his impression may have been guided by the high necked, split sleeved dress she wore, long and in a style reminiscent of something from an Errol Flynn movie. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders, and her eyes were a smothered blue-grey, that for now were still wide with startled fear.

"You're a worshipper," he said. It was a statement of fact, not an accusation, as it could well have been. To remind him of that, Ronon growled.

"I had no other choice," she said. Her tone was bitter, and as if to cover the pain of it, she leaned down to brush the dirt from her skirts.

"Why were you running?" Sheppard asked.

She straightened up to look him in the eye, as she repeated, "I had no other choice."

Her answer made him uncomfortable; as if she was deliberately being uncooperative, but not through any loyalty to her Wraith masters, simply because it was what _she_ wanted to do. He had no idea why he should have such an impression. She was otherwise innocuous and convincing as a frightened young woman running from the Wraith, but there was something… some small measure of an impulse he couldn't explain that led him to doubt what he saw.

"What's going on here?" Ronon's question rumbled across his reverie, and he blinked; focussed his attention on the woman in front of him. She shook her head.

"It's all right," Sheppard reached out toward her, but she backed away out of reach, twisting her shoulder away from his touch. He stepped forward, refusing to give up. If nothing else she was their one lead; their one chance of information. "Why don't you start by telling us your name?"

"Jet—" she gasped, still breathless and her voice cracked as she spoke. "Jethera."

"All right, Jet," he said, "I'm John, this is Ronon, and these are two of my men." He nodded to the men now standing on either side of her. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll get you out of here – get you some place safe, if you tell me what you know about what's going on back there."

She shook her head again.

"I don't need your help," she said. "And you should leave. You don't belong and you're making a mistake in being here."

"Can't do that," Sheppard said, and stopped when Ronon took a hold of his shoulder, and leaned down to him.

"We're wasting our time here, Sheppard. She's a worshipper. She's not going to tell us _anything,_" Ronon said.

"That's as may be, but she's a lead – the only lead we have and she must know something," he said.

"She's… a worshipper," Ronon repeated.

"There are five Hives here," Jethera called out to him. "Do you think the four of you can stand against five queens?"

"There, you see," Sheppard said, and slapped Ronon on the chest with the back of his hand, "Already she's telling us things we need to know."

He turned back to Jethera, still flanked by the two airmen and making no attempt to escape from them.

"All right, five Hives, five queens," he said, "Why?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter why. What matters is that if you stay here, you will be killed. That doesn't need to happen. You can walk away."

"As I've already said: no can do," Sheppard answered, "but I'll tell you what: as a sign of my good faith, and for the information you've just given to me, I'll honour my side of the deal. My men will take you back to Atlantis and—"

The change that came over her was startling. She tried to dart away, and fought the airman that caught hold of her and restrained her. The tension in her entire being was clearly visible, and in her voice, as audible as a thunder clap.

"I didn't make a deal with you," she said. Her words were shrill and harsh. "Let me _go_. I don't need your help! I won't go with you!"

"Take her back, boys." Sheppard's determination to learn what she knew was only doubled by her efforts to refuse. "Ronon, go with them. Make sure they get to the Jumper and then meet me on that rise of rocks over there," he pointed to the western horizon, where low, craggy cliffs were visible against the darkening sky.

"Please," Jethera's voice had turned from bitterness to desperation. "I can't go with you. I can't."

"No one is going to hurt you," he tried to reason with her, to soothe her obvious fears, even as his own spiked fiercely in an already churning gut. "You'll be safe."

"No," she told him.

Ronon's blaster trilled again, as the impatient Satedan raised his weapon and pointed it at the woman's chest. Even so, it was Ronon's words that chilled Sheppard, more than the obvious, physical threat.

"You have no other choice," he said.

* * *

><p>McKay shovelled another fork full of mashed potato into his mouth, the rest of his face frowning even as his taste buds experienced another burst of near-nirvana. It wasn't quite blue jello, but it was close. Mashed potato and blue jello – he could live on them indefinitely.<p>

His frown deepened as he peered at the screen of the laptop that was perched on the other side of the table from his bulging tray. He may not have _indefinitely_ if he didn't get the message hidden in the subspace carrier wave decoded before they all got themselves into yet another spot of deep trouble… and as usual Sheppard was off ahead, carrying their banner.

He quickly keyed the only remaining algorithm his tired and still hungry brain could come up with – at least until he'd eaten the rest of the meal in front of him – into the computer. The hard disk whirred quietly for a moment or two, and McKay sighed in anticipation of another failure.

The whir turned to a double bleep from the laptop, and the random Wraith characters began to realign themselves into a more recognisable frame of reference. He laughed triumphantly.

"I did it!" he announced, drawing sceptical expressions from passers by that spoke of their doubt of his sanity. He didn't care and repeated more loudly, "I did it!"

Then his elation froze, and the celebratory fork full of mashed potato he lifted into his mouth began to taste like sand – bitter and gritty.

"Oh no," he breathed. "Oh no, no, no, no, no! Please tell me Sheppard hasn't gotten there yet… for the love of—" he cut himself off, keying his headset. "This is Doctor McKay to the Control Room. I need to speak to Colonel Sheppard, priority one!"

* * *

><p>Straining with the effort, Sheppard closed his aching hand over the lip of the rocky climb and hauled himself up to the top of the cliff, rolling as he did to lie breathless, eyes closed, trusting in the lip of rock he had just breeched to shield him from any prying eyes that might have spotted his ascent.<p>

His chest heaved, and his arms burned with fire that left them trembling. It had been a harder climb than he'd expected and he lay there for several long moments, winded and sweating with receding effort.

Something made him still his laboured breath; a slight scuff against the dry dirt on which he lay, of the sweep of something soft against the hardness of the ground. The sweat on his body cooled in an instant, and prickled like the warning quills of some giant porcupine.

"Ah crap," he whispered on the outgoing breath as he opened his eyes, to see the too familiar figure, backlit by the slow-descending sun, but familiar all the same, looking down on him in serious countenance.

"John Sheppard," Todd said, his voice stroking against Sheppard's too taut nerves as he drew out the sounds of his name. Sheppard's hand twitched toward his thigh holster. "Oh come now, don't disappoint me by doing anything so foolish as to reach for your weapon."

"Todd," Sheppard spat.

In amused but warning tones, the Wraith answered, "I have been waiting for you."


	3. Act 3

Stargate Atlantis

**Convocation**

_…wave after wave, each mightier than the last…_

Act 3

_She moved with a graceful sway through darkened, red lit corridors. The drones of the Hive and the faced commanders fell to their knees as she approached; averted their eyes as if from some terrible visage. In her wake, which she could see without a turn of her head, Wraith withered and died, becoming little more than dry husks, as though fed upon by some invisible enemy all at once. The atmosphere was one of awe; of terror._

_Achieving her goal, she turned full circle in the centre of the throne room and all in the Queen's Chamber basked in her presence – then _he _came._

_Looming out of the mists surrounding her, he approached confidently, proprietorially – claiming ownership over all present, her included, until she turned his way._

_Todd froze._

_His scheming expression faded to one of undeniable awe and he sank to his knees in front of her, his arms open in supplication, his breast bared for her touch._

_"Magnificent," he rumbled softly. His tone matched the attitude seen in his actions._

_"All shall kneel before me," she snarled, and she did not recognise the sound of her own voice. Something was wrong with it. It sounded less and more than her, both at the same time. "I bring despair!"_

_"My Queen," Todd prostrated himself in front of her, completely and totally in her thrall._

_She raised her hands before her face. Their bone white, elongated digits almost shone in the half light, sharp talons reflected back the blood red illumination in their dark surface._

_~*this will be*~ ~*will be*~ ~*be*~ ~*be*~ ~*be*~ ~*be*~ ~*be*~_

* * *

><p>Jennifer Keller woke screaming.<p>

"Easy, Jennifer, easy," Ayatesha pressed a soft, but solidly present touch against the other woman's shoulder to try and stop her from thrashing. "It was just a dream."

"No," Keller moaned.

"Look at me," she said, the strong hint of an order in her voice. She was gratified when, at last, Jennifer raised her eyes to hers. "It was just a dream."

"Sit with me," Keller said, "please."

Ayatesha pulled up a stool and sat beside her bed.

"If you want to talk about it—"

"I was a Wraith," Keller cut her off.

Ayatesha sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, controlling her reaction to the confession Keller had just thrown her way. When she spoke, it was with a slight exaggeration in calm.

"Under the circumstances, Jennifer, it is understandable that you should dream such a thing," she said, trying to be reassuring, though she couldn't help but shiver at the thought of it.

"No, it… I—" Keller covered her face with her hands. "Ayatesha, I'm scared. You have _no_ idea."

Ayatesha sighed, wishing it were true.

"I understand fear," she said softly.

"Not like this," Keller countered.

* * *

><p><em>She was drowning… drowning and cold… and burning all at the same time. She could feel them close and they were warmth to her, they were life… She could see little but a single giant blur, but she could sense them… feel them… hear them searching the nearby rooms.<em>

_"Closer… closer…" the words came from her as a barely recognisable, fevered growl._

_"Clear!"_

_"Clear…" She crouched as a dark-clad soldier entered the room – he hadn't seen her, moving to make herself smaller, coil like a spring; waiting._

_Her balance shifted, another dizzying wave of pain, cramping through every nerve in her body as the spasms always did, assaulted her and she tipped, and rattled the chains attached to the cuffs around her wrists._

_"Wait," the soldier's voice sounded fearful, she _smelled_ his fear, recognised it from her own shrouding stench. Then suddenly he cried out, surprise and horror mingling in his single vocal tones. "In here, Doctor… I found—"_

_She leaped at him, snarling – but fell short, pulled back by the chains as a smaller, slight woman skirted the stronger soldier, and shamed him by her actions._

_"Oh my God… Ayatesha? Ayatesha… it's all right!" The warm of arms, and a body close by wrapped around her and she instinctively sought the heat, "It's all right… you're safe now."_

_But something about the voice was familiar in a way that was uncomfortable… a half forgotten memory, and she panicked – she could hurt her… the woman mustn't stay near. Ayatesha began to fight, throwing her limbs against the restraining metal, welcoming the pain… snarling as the soldier backed away, allowing another figure close._

_"Daniel," the woman holding her would not let go. "Help me. Hold her. She's tearing herself to pieces with these cuffs."_

_A new set of arms closed around her and she fought all the harder, but he was stronger, physically, though his voice much softer – almost gentle._

_"It's all right," he wrapped his arms more tightly around her, confining… her arms pinned at her sides. "Ayatesha, please, you're safe… it's Daniel, you _know_ me… Daniel… Daniel Jackson."_

_"Sergeant," the woman's voice, cutting across the memory she tried to reach, banishing the recognition, "find a way to free her… please."_

_"No!" Ayatesha was finally able to form the word in the front of her mind, and twisted harder in the one called Daniel's grasp. She felt his hold begin to slacken as fatigue set in. She turned in his arms, grabbed with the clawed, right hand against the fabric of his shirt, tearing it… finding flesh beneath._

_"Carolyn!" Daniel called in warning, grasping her wrist, trying to pull her hand away._

_"Hang on, Daniel," Carolyn hurried over, carrying a small syringe in her hand. "I'm going to sedate her. Sergeant, the cuffs – whenever you're ready!"_

_"Is that even going to work?" Daniel's voice was urgent, but not shrill._

_"I don't know," Carolyn answered, "But we have to try something. We can't leave her like this."_

_Ayatesha shrank away as the needle came close, pressing the side of her cheek against Daniel's shoulder; cried out at the sharp sting of the syringe; a contradiction against her apparent attack of a moment ago._

_"Easy…" Daniel smoothed her hair, wispy, foreign to her, away from her face. "It's all right." She felt the drug sweeping through her, like a wave of cotton, her muscles relaxed in its wake. "That's it… we're not going to hurt you."_

_"So far so good," the one called Carolyn smiled, and reached out toward her. She felt the warmth of the woman's hand against her chilled brow. "She's like ice! We have to get her core temperature up. See if you can find some—"_

_"We can't stay here," Daniel said, "We have to get her out. It's only going to be a matter of time before they figure out where we've gone and—"_

_"We can't move her," she countered, "not like this."_

_Ayatesha blinked, the blurred scene around her resolving, becoming clearer, she felt a momentary pressure at her wrists and then the weight of metal lifted away, blood beginning to flow to her fingers, making them ache._

_Embarrassed, she pushed away from the arms that surrounded her, overbalanced, her arm flailing. Daniel caught her flailing hand and steadied her._

_"What… happened?" she forced the words around an unfamiliar throat, her mouth thick and swollen._

_"You don't remember?" Carolyn asked._

_"Research…" Ayatesha struggled to speak the word, accentuate the memory. "…soldiers…"_

_A sudden rush of panic pushed aside the rationality as the sedation faded, far too quickly. She tried to pull her hand away from Daniel's, press it to her belly, where a deep, gnawing pain began to spread, engulfing her, radiating out until even her arms ached with it._

_"Daniel…"_

_"This isn't helping, Carolyn!" Daniel looked in alarm at the other woman._

_"Daniel… Carolyn… Daniel…" Ayatesha recited the names with each snatched breath. Her mind raced. Why were they so familiar to her? Why did Daniel say she knew him?_

_Struggling once more, she pulled her hand free of his grasp, but immediately reached for him again, as before, fingers leading._

_"Daniel!" Carolyn's voice was like a gunshot in Ayatesha's ear as she pushed her away from Daniel, knelt on her arm and pinned her down._

_"Let _go_ of me!" Ayatesha snarled, fighting both the impulse and the yawning, burning pain inside of her, memory sweeping in as the fire seared away the dull confusion. She hated everything they stood for, everything they'd done. "You're SGC! You did this! I will ki—"_

_"The people that did this don't know we're here," Daniel tried to explain, raising his voice over hers, "This wasn't Stargate Command. We're not—"_

_"Forget it. She's not hearing you." Carolyn pointed to a blue tinted vial in her nearby medical kit as Ayatesha struggled with her. "Hand me that vial!"_

_However, Ayatesha _was_ hearing them, and _did_ understand. She screamed as Daniel picked up the vial, as inhuman a sound as ever she'd made; shrank from it as though it were poison and he too. Her gaze snapped to Carolyn._

_"Please don—"_

_"The original?" Daniel's head came up, incredulousness mingled with horror on his face. "Carolyn, you can't. Even Cars—"_

_"It's all we have left, Daniel," Carolyn said, "kill or cure."_

Shaking off the memory, Ayatesha reached for one of Keller's hands and took it into her own.

"Yes, even like this," she said softly. "There was a time—"

"Cancer," Keller interrupted. "I remember they said you had cancer; a survivor."

Ayatesha looked at Keller for a long time, her mind turning over and over. She wanted to be truthful – was inherently an honest woman, but she just couldn't. The risk was far too great and beyond Varnerin's obvious suspicions – and Evan Lorne's intuitive knowledge – only three people remained alive that knew the truth, and Ayatesha herself was one of them. It was simply too dangerous for it to be otherwise. That didn't mean she couldn't bend the truth a little, if she could use it to bring Keller any comfort.

"A genetically engineered organism – an incident at the lab," she sighed softly and squeezed Keller's hand again. "I was in fear for my life, Jennifer. It was aggressive and I was so sick, did some... terrible things."

"Is that why you went into voluntary exile afterwards?" Keller asked, "because of what you'd done?"

"It is complicated, but... in essence, yes," she confessed. "I feared what I had become."

She realised as the words left her lips that she had slipped and watched the frown begin its slow march across Keller's face.

"What you had become?" Keller asked.

"Yes," she took a breath to compose herself, to retrieve the mask. "Through all that I had done and of which I perceived myself guilty, I feared the kind of person I had become; feared what I might be capable of. Much as you, now, are feeling – right?"

"But, Ayatesha, what happened—You said there was an incident at the lab, so... what happened wasn't your fault."

"And neither is this yours, Jennifer," she countered. "Todd manipulated you and now you bear this burden, and the fear that comes with it, of what _you_ might become." She sighed softly once more. "I just want you to know that I _do_ understand. More than that, in many ways, I _share_ your burden."

She closed her eyes and felt Keller cover her hand with the other of hers, squeezing the digits softly in gratitude. Ayatesha opened her eyes and smiled at her.

"Thank you," Keller murmured, then closed her eyes apparently in thought before she asked, "Ayatesha, is there any medical reason I need to be confined to bed any more. Prevented from working?"

Ayatesha considered that, knowing that Carson would likely prefer it if she were. She also knew from her own experience that there was nothing worse than sitting around, feeling useless when you could be doing something to help – either yourself or others.

"No," she said at length.

"Then please, for the love of God, authorise me for duty. I _feel_ fine," Keller implored her.

Ayatesha looked up from their joined hands to meet her eyes. She saw in Keller a kind of kindred hopelessness and matching resolve. She also knew, as if she had heard Keller's thoughts, that without a doubt, Jennifer Keller would betray her trust.

"Aiwa, all right," she said softly, and to hell with the consequences. To hell with _everything_.

* * *

><p><em>She knows...<em>

Keller shivered as Ayatesha's soft words reached her. The look of compassion and resignation she saw in the other woman's eyes kindled a pang of conscience that was almost painful. She also knew, however, that neither Carson nor Ayatesha – the two most brilliant geneticists and medical practitioners that she knew – would be able to help her now.

There was only one person who could help her, the one who had begun it all and from that moment on, the only hope she had was to find a way to reach him...

...and that she would do so by any means necessary.

_"I feared the kind of person I had become... what I was capable of... as you now must..."_

* * *

><p>"What kind of trick is this?" the Raven Queen all but screeched as the drones forced the hybrid to his knees in space at the centre of the conclave. Malcolm almost felt sorry for him, glancing around to take in the horrified expressions on the faces of almost all of the queens and their commanders.<p>

Only one appeared unmoved, and she met his eyes with a slightly amused expression signalled in the tilt of her head. He sighed softly.

_Little do they know..._

He thought he had kept his reflections to himself, until he felt the touch of the Shadow Queen's mind in his once more. He was slipping; he would have to be more careful.

_'They knew... once... but have forgotten over time.'_

_{nothing is forgotten – except by choice}_

He could not keep the sarcasm from his inner voice, nor the bitterness from entering his expression as his eyes narrowed.

_{but the time is coming when they must remember or perish} {perish} {perish} {perish} {perish}_

_'control your anger, First Consort... and **you** remember: wheels within wheels are turning – always' 'always' 'always' 'always' 'always'_

As the Shadow Queen's voice faded, almost as a physical pain, within his mind, the Raven Queen's angry challenge split the night air.

"How do we know it isn't a lie?" she snarled.

"A ruse, planted to manipulate us into doing your bidding..." The Red Queen took up the challenge, looking over at the small cabal now huddled around the hybrid. "A thought that you implanted in his mind for us to find."

Malcolm saw a look flash between the Red Queen and her son. What was she hiding? What did they know? He focused his attention on the son – knowing he had encountered the Old Ones... what had they told him?

_Why do you serve...?_

"Doing such a thing would prove counterproductive," the Elder Queen said dismissively, releasing the hybrid to the not-so-tender ministrations of the Raven Queen. "Entirely a waste of time, since you would see through it in an instant."

"All the more reason to plant the thought, knowing we would make this challenge and—"

"Enough!" The Shadow Queen's hissed word was like a blade, slicing the air, and every queen and Wraith commander present stiffened in the wake of it. "Once again, you allow yourselves to become distracted by pointless questions. That one will _always_ survive. It is what. He. Is. Move on. Must I remind you that we are each of us... vulnerable here?"

Malcolm turned his head to watch as the Raven Queen continued to toy with the hybrid in their midst like a cat at a rodent... and like a rodent, Malcolm knew, that one would fight – albeit unconsciously – if backed into a corner. He almost warned the Raven Queen of the poison the hybrid carried in its veins as her feeding hand mantled as the hybrid tried to pull away from her, but her own commander stepped forward just enough to be within her line of sight, an unspoken signal passing between the two. The moment passed and the hybrid slumped dejected between his two drone guards.

"Perhaps a more pertinent question," The Red Queen's voice broke the tense silence that had descended over the convocation, and turning toward the Elder Queen with a sneer on her face, continued, "would still be to ask you, Sister, just what it was that you were doing with The Abomination for all of that time you had him aboard your Hive?"

"Such suspicion, _dear_ sister," the Elder Queen snapped, ladling on the sarcasm like a thick sauce. "If you know as much as you claim of _that_ one and his habits you will concede that it is not easy to... extract information from him, by any means."

"Granted," the Red Queen allowed with a slight nod of her head, "As far as it goes."

"And what does _that_ mean?" the Elder Queen snapped, bristling so much that Malcolm could feel her fraying temper all too well. He shifted his weight slightly to give himself a better balance should anything begin, pointedly ignoring the Shadow Queen's gaze.

"There are questions, that is all," the Red Queen shrugged as if dismissively, but Malcolm wasn't fooled for a moment. Nothing had been dismissed, and the mention of questions so casually expressed would arouse the suspicions of the other queens.

_'what does she know? What **did** happen aboard our sister's Hive?'_

The Shadow Queen's presence in his mind was as unwelcome as it was surprising. Had he allowed himself to become so distracted by the others that he had neglected the one sister that truly posed any real threat? He pushed at the mental contact, strengthening his defences, refused to acknowledge the older Queen against all protocol.

_'oh come now, First Consort, dispense with this false loyalty – you no more approve than I, of her methods or the attitudes held by this Queen.'_

_{my approval or otherwise is beside the point, Old One.}_

_'hardly. I believe they are precisely the point... at this moment in time. Otherwise... why are you here?'_

Malcolm chuckled mentally as the question resonated on several different levels within his mind.

_{why do you serve...?}_

The Shadow Queen's answering chuckle was like the rasp of dry leaves blowing across a barren winter wasteland.

"If you have something to say, Sister, please..." the Elder Queen spread her arms, stepping forward suddenly and startled Malcolm into following, "...by all means, let us lay bare all accusations."

He almost overstepped himself... almost spoke out as the atmosphere among the members of the convocation became more and more tense. Something stayed his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a movement of white against the darkness of the rocks, a small, slender figure slipping into conclave like the negative image of a shadow... Isla.

Her gaze was fixed across the void in the centre of the open space to where the Blood Queen sat motionless and listening on her throne, and behind her, a newly arrived handmaiden leaned down to speak softly to her Queen.

Warning prickled along his spine.

_{Isla?}_

She did not answer him as he reached out to her... and nor did he have the chance to reach for her more fully, as the Red Queen's accusation rang out over the gathering in full force.

"What vital discovery did It reveal to you that you should send one of your cruisers away toward the Wraith Home Territory with such urgency?" She turned an accusing stare toward the Elder Queen. "What was aboard that cruiser?"

At this, as close to an open challenge as any queen had so far given, Malcolm did step forward, his hand flashed to cover the hilt of the blade he carried. His movement was mirrored by the tall figure of the Red Queen's son.

"The movement of ships under my command; under the command of my Queen," Malcolm snarled, unable to hold his peace any longer, and knowing full well what the ship had contained, "is of _no_ concern to any other Hive."

The Red Queen's son stepped forward in challenge at his words, and with heavy sarcasm, demanded, "Also, do enlighten us – how could this Abomination have survived such a devastating attack from such a powerful weapon that it could destroy your Hive... Otherwise?"

Malcolm caught his implied meaning immediately and laughed mid-growl at the other Wraith's assumptions. He took another step closer to the Red Queen's son. The Elder Queen made no move to stop him, and neither, he noticed, did the Red Queen or any other attempt to stop the younger Wraith commander when he answered in kind.

"You would be fool enough to suggest that we spirited him away? That even now, my Queen keeps him in some secret place?" He did nothing to try and hide the mocking incredulity in his voice. "Do you _hear_ how ridiculous you sound – how foolish you present your Queen?"

A rumbling snarl, leonine in warning, punctuated the air between the Red Queen's son and Malcolm. Malcolm remained unintimidated, however – though not entirely unconcerned.

"Your Queen went to such lengths to secure his capture—"

"Yes," Malcolm locked bitter gaze with the other Wraith, silently daring him to first draw steel. "In order to extract information; to find a way to undo the harm he has done; to restore to Wraith a means to survive against the insidious poison with which he would weaken us."

It was not true, at least not to know knowledge – The Elder Queen's intent had been far removed, except by incidental happenstance, in what she had tried to do, but he made the lie nonetheless convincing from his lips.

The Red Queen's son growled, hot-headed at the contempt Malcolm was showing to him, the ridicule and scorn he heaped upon him took yet another step forward, bringing him almost nose to nose with Malcolm. He all but began his verbal counterattack with the word _liar_ springing from his lips.

"You meant to use his knowledge to advance the position of your own Hive; to manipulate the destiny of the Wraith to _your_ design... that of your Queen; for evolution..."

"Speak no further, youngling," Malcolm warned.

"Why? Because I approach the truth? Because your Queen sought to—"

"To what?" Malcolm snarled, tightening his hand on the hilt of his blade. "Ensure the continuation of Wraith? Or perhaps you fuss and whine to divert attention from the rumour of your family's twisted manipulation of our genome – the truth of what your Dam's progeny has done!"

"—or that you would do the same? Create some... kind of... "

_::precious beyond the understanding of most, heshamae hensuus:: :: heshamae hensuus:: ::hensuus:: ::hensuus::_

The sudden presence of the Revered Matron deep in his psyche dizzied Malcolm with its almost desperate intensity to reach him. There was pain in her touch – need... deep and primal.

_We are dying..._

The thought came to him as an echo of Her pain... so terrifying that he could not but act against it.

Reflex for survival, and against the one most threatening the continuance of Wraith in that moment, penetrated his entire being, and before he realised what he was doing he pulled the blade from its sheath, and angled it along his forearm as he moved toward the younger Wraith Commander, the sharp edge of the blade at the other's throat.

_(($-hold-$))_

The strength of a queen's mind wrapped around his trembling senses... and the white heat of it drained his anger. His muscles locked as he instinctively obeyed, and his mind cleared rapidly as he stood, trembling, his blade millimetres away from cleaving the Red Queen's son's head from his shoulders.

He felt a soft, slow buzzing of a contact against his chest, and drew in a breath as the Blood Queen pressed her almost flattened feeding hand against his pounding heart, beginning to ease him away from the other. To his other side, at his shoulder he felt the presence of the Shadow Queen, as if she too had been ready to intervene where neither his own Queen, nor the other's had sought to end the posturing that _would_ have ended in the death of one or other of the two. His blood chilled at the thought. To have shed blood at such a conclave was an ill omen.

_(($-stand at peace, Commander, he knows not what or how he speaks-$))_

"Forgive me..." Malcolm said softly, and swallowing added, "Madam."

"There is naught to forgive, Commander," The Blood Queen answered, and as she pushed almost gently at his chest, he felt the buzz of her energy increase in the contact against him.

_{You support me... why?}_

_(($-I would see Wraith survive-$))_

_{but—}_

_::look to your Queen... guide her... guard her... guide them all::_

He turned his head to face the Blood Queen, managing to keep the expression of shocked surprise from his face.

_{you hear}_

_(($-I hear-$))_

"But we must remember that we need to maintain calm, and not fight among ourselves over matters speculative or otherwise – if we are to wisely choose from among us, a Primary to lead us forth."

"To what end?" the Shadow Queen's rasping voice punctuated the descending silence with a question that had Malcolm look once more across the darkened space of the convocation toward where the white shadow of Isla still watched, and seemingly... waited.

* * *

><p>If he had not been so tired, Michael might have felt admiration for the way the Captain fought him, even after all of his warnings against it.<p>

"Leave me alone," she snarled the words at him through clenched teeth as he moved back toward the biogenetic bed to which he had fixed her... opened to his scopes and instruments that would allow him to harvest the genetic material that he had begun quickening within her. He did not have time for her objections, or for the niceties of sedation. His arrival was late, and if the ova were not extracted within hours then he risked losing them... and losing the host which would not scuttle his plans, to lose the captain, but she did possess almost the strongest Chimera Radical he had ever seen in a human subject. Ignoring her protest completely, he activated the suppression field, immobilising her, and matter-of-factly moved the microsurgical array toward her.

"Don't you—" The snarling words became a cry as he inserted the array. As the cry faded, gasping, she continued to fight him in the only way that remained. "You fucker! You are so _dead_ when I—"

He paused, looking up from the scope, completely unphased by her outburst, and calmly answered, "This will progress more quickly, and with far less discomfort if—"

"Get it out of me!" she gasped. "What gives you the right to do this to me... to experiment... invade my body like—"

She gave another shrill cry as he activated the instrumentation. The internal probe immediately began to send back the real-time scan in order to guide his harvesting of the Chimera rich genetic material. As he prepared to do so, he selected a long needled syringe filled with a deep almost luminous blue-white fluid, and pressing a careful touch low on her belly, slipped the needle in alongside his fingers.

"Like the test subject that you are," Michael snapped his voice mingling with her cry. "You provide me with the genetic material I require, and I ensure that you survive. It is that simple."

Vega found her voice again though it remained shrill with obvious fear and the discomfort of the procedure. "I swear to God, when my people find you—"

Michael tilted his head, moving to reach the scissor like handles that would allow him to manipulate the microsurgical instruments inside his subject's body, and frowning asked, "Which god would that be, Captain?" He did not try to hide the sarcasm in his voice as he continued, slowly manoeuvring the slim needle through the tissue of her body toward one of her hyperstimulated ovaries. "It seems to me that whatever gods your people worship deserted you long ago."

"Michael, please...!" she gasped.

"Or perhaps because so many of you are so fond of believing that you, yourselves are gods..." he paused, concentrating as he aspirated the many ripe follicles, leaving none unprobed, before continuing, "...that you have forgotten that with such power comes obligation... responsibility..."

"You lecture _me_?" she growled momentarily in fight, then cried out once more as he withdrew the needle and repeated the process on the opposite side. "Michael!"

He looked up then, and in a voice that was cold and harsh as he harvested what genetic material was left to collect, told her comfortlessly, "Believe me, Captain Alicia Vega, this is a far gentler fate to which I deliver you than that which awaits the rest of humanity."

He moved away from her then, taking the aspirated ova to begin the process of cloning the next phase of his army of hybrids, timing was critical, and while it meant he couldn't yet see to the captain's comfort or dignity, for that matter, there was still the matter of the further experimentation he intended for her. With the strongest activated radical, he could not afford to risk the trial on any other.

"Michael?" Vega's voice followed him fearfully across the laboratory. "Wait... you can't—you can't leave me like this... Michael? Michael!"

* * *

><p><em>To what end indeed?<em>

Malcolm's thoughts were troubled as he drew his gaze away from Isla and back to the conversation that was progressing – or more accurately – _devolving_ in front of him. Though his own actions had done little to alleviate the mistrust between the five sisters, the queens themselves managed admirably when it came to mutual antagonism.

"Tell us then, Sister," the Red Queen stepped up to her son's side, glaring at Malcolm, whose hand was slowly pressed back toward the sheath at his waist by the touch of the Blood Queen's hand. "What _valuable_ information did you win through your interrogation of the Abomination?"

Malcolm couldn't help but cringe as he finally sheathed the blade, and with an obedient bow to the Blood Queen, stepped back to the Elder Queen's side. She cast him a glance, and he knew she felt his disquiet at their continued obstinacy in continuing to denigrate one of the most brilliant scientific minds; one of the most true-seeing of their kind – _and he __**is **__Wraith, whether we like it or not_ – to something out of human tales designed to frighten errant young to their beds at night.

"He was hard to break, that one," the Elder Queen stepped past Malcolm, taking a position of strength among the others, her stature relegating her diminutive sister back to the shadows. She turned a pointedly cold stare on the Red Queen, the tension building once more in the wake of it.

"But you did," the Blood Queen stated rather than asking.

"Of course she did," the Red Queen snapped and gestured impatiently to her son. The young commander stepped back and only then did Malcolm do the same. "Otherwise we would not be here at her behest, seeking alliance and with a Primary to lead it."

Malcolm stiffened at the accusatory, sarcastic tones in the Red Queen's voice. She would clearly not give up her efforts to discredit his Queen.

"We need alliance, yes," the Elder Queen agreed, feigning calm, almost boredom. "And one of us must guide such an alliance, but our priority must be to ensure the survival and continued supremacy of the Wraith, and not…" She paced along the edge of her dais and back, before pointing an accusing talon at the Red Queen. The blade at the tip of her finger flashed with reflected light.

"Not," she repeated, "the pursuit of personal power as our dear sister would have you believe of me. She, of all of us, would do well to heed what I have learned from the many days my best interrogators worked on loosening _that one's_ tongue."

The flash of a burning lake pushed suddenly into Malcolm's mind and while he had to admit to his own surprise at the strategy, one glance at the unguarded expressions on the faces of the other Queens told him it had been well played. To remind them all of their enemy's Wraith heritage had suddenly brought the conversation to a level above the cheap innuendos and hints of betrayal with which the Red Queen sought to taint the Elder.

"Meaning?" the Raven Queen paused in toying with the captive hybrid, snapping her gaze to the two other queens who still faced off across the dais. The Elder Queen waved her hand dismissively.

"Merely that we – and our progeny – must remember now, more than ever, the importance of maintaining the good health of our queens," she said. She shrugged then, turning her back pointedly, but not, Malcolm knew unguardedly, on the Red Queen. In the ensuing silence she stalked back to her throne and settled herself gracefully into it.

Malcolm could have applauded her veiled attack. She had not quite accused the Red Queen of breeding a line of Queen Killers, but everyone present knew the reputation of some in her line.

It remained to be seen if the Red Queen would rise to the bait; try to attack or counter the Elder Queen's gambit. Malcolm was torn between disappointment and satisfaction when she did neither, merely returned to her own throne, before she tilted her head in query.

"What did you learn?" she asked.

"That we must find a way to halt the stagnation of our race." The Elder Queen's face was harsh in the seriousness as she dropped all attempts at obfuscation. "That the key to our future lies in evolution and not in the maintenance of the status quo."

Her proclamation hung in the air between the five sisters – palpable, almost visible. Malcolm felt the slow fracturing of all of the remaining posturing and games, like glass falling to sharper, deadlier shards for one misstep to bring the errant one to fall upon. As if to underline his impression, the Raven Queen stalked petulantly back to her throne as if the Elder Queen's words had spoiled the fun she was having with the hybrid.

Malcolm returned to his place at the shoulder of his Queen, realising far too late that he could no longer see Isla and the fact of it lodged like a thorn to nag at his mind. He might have predicted that it would be the Red Queen who would be the first to voice objection.

"What nonsense is this?" she growled. "What we _need_ is an alternate feeding ground. We must find our way to overtake the Lanteans and take this world of theirs, this Earth."

"Need I remind you," the Blood Queen grumbled, "of the lack of success in our last attempt."

"Because of the Abomination," the Red Queen snapped.

"Not so," the Raven Queen cawed. "The blame for that failure lies with the subordinate queen who chose to betray our kind and embrace the insidious retrovirus that the humans had created."

"Then what are you saying, Sister," the Blood Queen asked. "That we must first take Atlantis to prevent them from protecting their world?"

The Raven Queen waved a hand in the negative. "We haven't the numbers," she said. "And we have been reduced to so few queens and cloning facilities that—"

"Cloning is a dead end," the Elder Queen interrupted harshly. "Fatal to the Wraith. It is a step toward our extinction. We _must_ find a way to diversify our genome. We _must_ continue with our evolution before we attempt further cloning."

* * *

><p>Her consciousness was lodged in one agonising blur of pain and fear, and Captain Vega let out another snarling sob in expression of it. She twisted her body against the restraints, and tears and spittle combined and flew as she reflexively twisted her head away from Michael as he came in closer, another instrument tray in hand.<p>

"Michael, don't… please! You don't need this, you—" she couldn't help the supplication or the tone from escaping her, even though she wanted to cover her fear with bravado… desperate not to appear weak before the maniac that was visiting such abuse and violation on every fibre of her being.

Michael ignored her pleas, picked up a syringe from the tray and pushed the long needle deep before depressing the plunger. An acid burn exploded inside her and everything in her lower belly cramped tightly.

Forcing herself to speak past her sudden breathlessness, she grabbed the renewed sob of pain and turning it into a ragged growl said, "What _good_ does this do you, genius…?" He did not answer, and the terror she felt drove her anger, and twisting her hips away from his steadying grasp she snarled, "Fucker… you can't make me do this! I _won't_ do this… I won't carry it, I—"

* * *

><p>"The point is moot, Sister," the Blood Queen snapped, irritation sizzled in the air around the five queens and Malcolm shifted uncomfortably, responding to the inherent threat by expanding his senses outward. "Even if it were possible – if we found a way to evolve beyond the flaws we are perpetuating in Wraith, we have too few facilities and within the necessary frame of time it is simply not possible to clone an army large enough to take Atlantis, as we once had done. It would take too long."<p>

"There are… rumours," rasped the Shadow Queen, coming forward once more, supported, physically, by her commander. "That _he_ has such facilities…"

Malcolm stiffened, his hand flashing toward the knife at his belt as he sensed a presence behind him. Even as his hand closed over the hilt of the blade, another hand, slender and chilled closed over his own, fingers sliding almost sensually against and between his, to fold her own grasp around the blade's bone handle.

He twitched his head in a sideways tilt, his glance going behind him to find the soft green obedience in a familiar set of eyes, tempered with urgent demand.

"You must come with me, my Lord," Isla's imperative whisper caressed his ears, before she, and the sound of her breath were lost to the night.

Malcolm stepped back, nodding once to his second who came to stand in his place as he melted into the shadows behind the dais and from there followed the cloaked figure back toward the Hive.

* * *

><p>"You will be powerless to do otherwise!"<p>

Captain Vega let out a shrill, stifled cry as Michael's hands slammed against the platform beside her head, one on each side, and he fixed her with the terrible, burning anger in his amber eyes.

"Once activated, this device will ensure both your full cooperation _and_ your survival until I deem otherwise, but you will," he growled softly, moving closer, as he repeated uncompromisingly, "you _will_ provide me with the data I need to predict the possible development of the Wraith genome should they have the ability to take what steps are necessary in order to halt the attrition of the Wraith."

"What does it matter?" Vega sobbed, imploring him for release with her eyes. "Why do you care? Didn't they reject you?"

She realised her mistake only when the burning anger she saw in his became cold fury, and closed her eyes as he flashed one hand to claw at her throat, choking off her air… expecting at any moment that his crushing strength would steal her life once and for all.

The killing stoke did not come.

Instead she felt the pressure against her neck ease, and knew that Michael had straightened up and moved away from her. When she opened her eyes he was standing, regarding her, as if waiting – his head tilted to one side.

Calmly, almost softly his voice seeped around the edges of her terror, serving not to soothe her, but to tighten the grip of her fear and hopelessness.

"I told Teyla that my dissemination of the Hoffan protein was the opening salvo in a broader assault I would make against the Wraith," he said evenly. "This," he gestured toward her body, restrained as she was against the bio-matter that made the surface and inner working of the device. She looked away from herself, her stomach clenching in dread as she realised the movement of Wraithlike tendrils towards her from within the device, and tubules which ended in semi-transparent, fluid filled tanks.

"Michael, no…" she whispered. "Oh, God!"

"This," he repeated, as if she had not spoken at all, "will be the next. What I learn here will provide me with the means to crush whatever the Wraith will become – however they might… evolve."

* * *

><p>Sheppard struggled against the almost gentle, and yet immovable hold the Wraith at his side had on his upper arm, the forced-march pace subduing his ability to breathe properly and doing little to alleviate the churning of worry in his belly. The deep, membranous red of the Hive walls sped past his eyes as Todd dragged him deeper and deeper into the huge ship.<p>

"You know, Todd," he said, trying to sound cheerful and unconcerned, but failing even to his own ears. "When I got up this morning this wasn't quite what I had in mind for the rest of my day."

"I warned you," Todd rumbled, "not to interfere in the affairs of Wraith."

Todd brought them to a jarring halt at the cross-junction of a number of corridors, and Sheppard almost tripped with the sudden nature of the stop. Only Todd's grip on his arm kept him upright, and that wasn't quite the comfort it should have been.

"Oh, come on," Sheppard countered flippantly, "with an invitation like that you expect me to—"

"It was _not_ an invitation!" Todd roared, and releasing Sheppard's arm, came at him as he stumbled away, his feeding hand mantling before digging with clawed fingers against the centre of his chest to slam him hard and fast against the nearest wall. He snarled again, wordlessly, and the churning worry knotted to fear in Sheppard's gut. He couldn't recall a time when he had seen Todd react out of true anger, as he was now.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he said urgently, hoping to breech the fog of emotion he almost felt from the Wraith, and raised his hand to either side in an honest gesture of surrender. "Todd, stop."

He felt the pressure begin to ease, the contact of Todd's hand against his chest withdrew as the twisted expression on the Wraith's face relaxed toward the usually impassive mask, his powerful chest rose and fell in a deep breath as he finally released his hold altogether. Sheppard all but fell forward to support himself on his thighs as he leaned against the wall, breathing hard and trying to calm the suddenly frantic beating of his heart.

"Look, maybe," he snatched between breaths, as close to an apology as he intended to make as he continued, "maybe I was wrong in coming here, but you gotta understand—"

He broke off as Todd tipped his head slightly to the side, regarding him without expression, or explanation for his anger.

Starting again, the knots in his stomach whirling in nervous caution, causing him to shift his balance to a more preparatory stance, he said, "We spotted this party even from Atlantis, I couldn't—"

Still, Todd gave him nothing, merely stared, unerringly, as if he were a specimen butterfly to be pinned to the cushioned pad of the wall. The continued silence, unnerving as it was, brushed against Sheppard's own anger, and pushing away from the wall he stepped up to the Wraith, as faced-off as he could get against his greater height.

"Damn it, Todd," he spat, "why won't you tell me what the hell is going on?"

Todd took another long, slow breath and let it out in a rumbling sigh, curling his fingers around Sheppard's upper arm once more. He tipped his head back toward the corridor behind them.

"This way," he rumbled softly, before beginning to move through the Hive again.

* * *

><p>Isla tightened the dark cloak around her shoulders as she hurried toward the entrance of the Hive, knowing the risk she was taking, but numb to the danger in it; feeling only the lingering pain of separation from her One Lord.<p>

She drew in a sharp breath as his long fingered hand closed around her arm once they stepped inside the Hive, drawing her first to a halt, and then into the shadows of an alcove, before he turned her to face him and reached out to push back her hood.

"Isla?" he tipped his head in query, and she trembled at the softness she heard in the sound of her name.

"Please, my Lord, there isn't much time," she said, and unknowingly lifted her cold hands to rest them against the warmed leather of his chest. She wanted so much to linger with him, to savour this stolen moment, but her loyalty to the Wraith and to her duty denied her own needs. She closed her eyes as his fingers curled beneath her chin, tipping her head back. If she met his gaze she knew she would be lost, was almost lost already. It was only in the knowledge that discharging her duty might bring her closer yet to redemption.

"Time enough for anything you must say to me that is important enough that you would draw me from our Queen's side," he purred softly. "Isla, look at me."

"I cannot," she breathed, turning her head away from his touch, no matter the burning, no matter how much she _wanted_ to simply open her eyes; to obey his softly spoken command, forget the taboos and interdictions placed on her in the wake of her accidental breech of faith. "You must come with me… please."

She slipped out of his grasp and hurried past him, wiping away the tears that forced their way from between her still closed lids, refusing even to weep for the moment lost.

* * *

><p>They had passed beyond several turns in the twisting corridors of the Hive before Todd spoke again, as the passageway they were following opened out into a wider, darkened space. Warning pricked along Sheppard's spine as they stepped out into the open – as if some clue, some lingering scent should give him greater knowledge of what was to come.<p>

"You put us both at great risk in coming here," Todd rumbled, still at his side as Sheppard fought to adjust his eyes to the chamber's greater darkness. The more his eyes adjusted to the low levels of light, and the more Todd spoke to him, his tones no longer holding the familiar, light amusement that Sheppard associated with Todd, even in the worst of moments, the greater the uncomfortable sense of warning that screamed at him from all sides. "And there comes a time when it is necessary to… err on the side of caution."

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?" Sheppard hissed.

"It means, John Sheppard, that no matter what you saw from Atlantis, there you should have stayed." The level of light slowly began to rise, and Sheppard became aware of footfalls, sure and confident, conveying a sense of proprietary familiarity. His chest tightened as he looked in Todd's direction.

"Todd?"

Without meeting his eyes, Todd said, "For now you have forced me to take sides." The Wraith lowered his head, and inclined the top half of his body slightly in what looked to be a respectful bow before speaking again – a single word this time. "Commander…"

Sheppard slowly twisted his head to face the direction of obeisance and the tightness in his chest became a mere inconvenience against the chill in his blood.

"Crap," he breathed, his eyes meeting those of a Wraith he remembered in aches he had been left with in their last encounter. Then straightening up, trying to bury his rising panic in his all-too-often-used sarcasm, he nodded in greeting and added, "Malcolm."

"Lantean," the Wraith commander returned his greeting with about the same amount of warmth as an Antarctic winter.

* * *

><p>She had tried resting, bathing, even eating, but everything she tried to eat increased the feeling of nausea inside of her, and nothing would curb the restlessness that was like an almost painful itch in every limb. Alicia finally stopped pacing the confines of the Hive's central chambers, and turned her path towards the door.<p>

She was somewhat surprised to find the doorway unguarded, but with a moment's thought realised that Todd had never once forbidden her from leaving the suite of rooms into which he had installed her on their return… besides, the thought of exploring brought a temporary respite to the gnawing agitation that otherwise filled her, though it did little to calm the tinnitus-like susurrations that still filled her head with a hollow ache.

Having little clue as to where she might walk, but suspecting that the inside of most Hive ships would be similar, if not the same as others, she continued on. She had learned the geography of at least one other Hive while in service to the Elder Queen, so she felt confident in her ability to navigate the maze of corridors that made up Todd's Hive.

Reaching the junction of one such passageway, she felt the strange internal pressure within the empty echo that her restlessness suffered upon her, and unconsciously she turned her steps in the direction of the strange allure. No matter in which direction she tried to set her path, turn upon turn she found herself drawn by the inextricable pull of the mystery drawing her on.

Curiosity and trepidation mingled somewhere within as she found herself unable to prevent answering the unheard siren call until she found herself walking a corridor a level above the descent to the lower station, and there stopped outside of a closed doorway that she could see, from the lighted panel beside the portal, was locked.

Frowning, and looking first one way and then another she checked the corridor for the presence of any Wraith that might try to prevent her ingress. Somewhere inside the restlessness ran a trickle of anger and she was uncertain as to whether it was because of the fact of the locked door or for some other, as yet unknown, reason. That alone should have been warning enough, but as unsettled as the feeling left her, and ignored by the Wraith around her, with a head tilted in an attitude of curiosity, she raised her hand to the panel beside the door.

A sensible, small spiral of fear began spinning in her belly when, in answer to her touch, the door hissed aside.

* * *

><p>The Red Queen's son frowned as he saw the Elder Queen's Commander step away, replaced by his second. He was unable to follow his progress, however, because the present argument in conclave continued, and he had little choice than to give it his full attention, but he resolved to find out what the Elder Queen and her cabal were up to, in permitting the absence of her commander.<p>

"Even _if_ we had sufficient facilities," the Elder Queen argued, "it would be of little use in our using them – I have told you! All we would do is to breed in weakness; fatal flaws which—"

"Wraith are not weak," the Blood Queen snapped, cutting off the Elder Queen's words.

"Sisters," his Queen sat straighter, almost rigid in her throne, and he found himself disturbed by the feelings he felt from her as she spoke. "Why do we persist in this pointless talk of evolution when what we need is to crush what remain of the Abomination's forces that hunt us. Anything else is almost certain to end in disaster."

The Raven Queen climbed to her feet, pulling her cloak around herself as she turned to face the two most vocal of her sisters. "The disaster here is not in what we would do, but in what we _must_. We _need_ to feed – we _have_ sufficient numbers to more than defend against our enemies, but where are they?" She threw back her arms, her hands upraised as if in supplication – as if petitioning the darkened, overhead sky to answer. Then turning to look at each of the others in turn she answered her own question slowly, "In enforced hibernation. With sufficient food, we could—"

"And what of the poison that flows in their blood – this Hoffan protein disseminated by our enemy?" The Blood Queen demanded.

"Exactly the point," The Elder Queen seemed to the Red Queen's Son to be delighted at the turn of the argument; revelling in it, indeed. "But hope is not lost if we can develop an immunity."

"How?" the Red Queen snapped, and her son found himself wondering at the wisdom of her failure to mask her contempt.

"Through evolution." The Elder Queen gestured toward their captive hybrid, "If any of you doubt it possible, there is the living proof. _He_ has found a way to instil immunity within his hybrids, so such a thing must be compatible with Wraith—"

"Through evolution?" the Red Queen interrupted, "You would have us return to infecting our genome with hybrid DNA as our ancestors—"

"She cannot – the hosts never survived," the Blood Queen's whip-like tongue spat the words across the conclave's space. "Breeding through hybrids has less success than—"

"She does not mean for us to breed through hybrid hosts," the Raven Queen turned once more to face the Blood Queen, and the Red Queen's Son's heart sank as he realised the rapid devolution of the argument into chaos.

"And this is what she has learned from the Abomin—"

"She means to use the huma—?"

"Prey?"

"She would have us as abominations ourse—"

"I will not debase myself with even the thought—"

The voices came at once thick and fast, each shouting louder than the last, drowning each other from the voices of the others and the air burned with the clash of warring psychic energy as the queens abandoned all pretence at the interdiction of such an act during convocation. The commanders each stepped closer to their queens and all hands flashed to the hilts of weapons, visible and otherwise.

…and the Red Queen's son noticed that only the Shadow Queen did not participate in the verbal and mental melee.

* * *

><p>Doorways opened well ahead of Beckett's rapid steps, born swiftly on the twin energies of anger and frustration.<p>

_"Honestly, Carson, and I'm sorry, but I'd rather you speak to Doctor Haddad herself. Don't make me quote doctor-patient confidentiality on you."_

He'd tried to reason with Carolyn, blindside her with a true-in-basis-of-fact that he needed to know in case anything ever happened to Ayatesha while she was serving on Atlantis, but even against such a gambit, Doctor Lamb refused to play ball.

_"If it's urgent enough for her to need treatment, Carson, they you'd already know, and nothing I could say would make the slightest difference."_

He wasn't going to be put off. He'd heard Varnerin's interpretation of the official version; had read the official version as presented in the SGC files, and knew that both were about as accurate and truthful as the biblical apocrypha, or the existence of Santa Claus. In spite of the nagging feeling that warned him not to ask questions he wasn't ready to have answered, he wanted the truth, and he wanted it now… and not when it was too late to save the woman he loved. He'd been down that road before, and it was too painful to even remember the look that had burned in Perna's dying eyes.

He stamped to a halt outside of Ayatesha's quarters, and without even chiming the door, waved a hand in front of the opener, relying on his natural gene to communicate his identity and medical clearance to the control crystal inside. He frowned deeply when the door failed to respond.

Reverting to good, old fashioned caveman tactics – and the irony did not escape him that he should use such force after the manipulation of the Ancients had failed him – he hammered on the sculpted metal of the door.

"Ayatesha," he called through the portal, "Open the door. It's Carson. We _need_ to talk."

* * *

><p>It did not take the image spiralling on the screen of her laptop to show Ayatesha that her DNA was developing a renewed immunity to the serum that kept the cells from reverting to their post-transcription state. She knew from the burning in her muscles and the pain in her bones, from the necessity for an increased dose and frequency of the serum. She knew from the hateful ache near the lymph node in her right arm, and all down the limb that she would need to adjust the serum – and soon, if she were going to halt the process this time.<p>

She pressed the button on the auto-injector, holding the device in place for longer than usual, before pulling it away, and immediately curling up tightly around the pillows on her bed, burying her face in the soft material and sobbing the sublimated scream against its cloaking depths. She held the pillows and herself tightly once the trembling began, and meant to stay that way long into the night before getting up to shower away the evidence of her torment.

The hammering on her door made her jump, and she straightened just as another spasm of agony washed over her, the rush of blood in her ears drowning out the words that came in the wake of the pounding knock. She bit her lip hard to keep from crying out – drawing blood, and squinted with barely seeing eyes across the room to ensure that she had removed the crystal from its housing. The hammering only continued, becoming louder and with less frequent pauses between each insistent tattoo.

"Ayatesha!" Carson's voice, full of a tangle of emotions reached her. "Open this door right now, or I _will _send for McKay!"

Knowing that Carson would make good on his threat, she forced herself upright, and stumbled across the short space to the door. With her unsteady hands it took three attempts for her to fumble the crystal back into position, and by the time she turned her back to the wall beside the door, and slid down to her haunches, lowering her still-covered head into her hands, her muscles were knotted with the rage of frustration as well as the effects of the serum. She tried to stay quiet as the door slid open, but the stampede of light from the corridor outside drew a whimper from her none-the-less.

* * *

><p>The last thing Carson expected was for the room to be virtually dark and as the door slid open at his almost frantic thought, it hit him almost like walking into a wall and every hackle on his back rose at the added sound of the whimper from beside the door.<p>

"Y'tesha," he started, and dropped to one knee at her side, "talk to me, love. Tell me what's wrong."

"No," she rasped, flinching away as he reached for her, "It will pass."

"Damn it, woman," he snapped, exasperation getting the better of him, his anger having long since been derailed, "stop trying to shut me out."

Ayatesha laughed, but it was a sound of hopelessness, and ended in what sounded more to Carson like a desolate sob than any other sound he had ever heard from the Egyptian doctor. That, more than anything else, scared him, unseating him before he even finished mounting his high horse.

"Let me at least get you somewhere more comfortable than the floor, eh?" he said, and before she could protest, slipped his arms around her, pulling her near rigid form against his chest as he picked her up and began to carry her to the bed. When he set her down he spotted the injector case, open on the nightstand, sharpening his fear for her to a barbed point lodged somewhere in his belly. His breath came out of him in the rush of her name, "Y'tesha…"

She caught his arm as he started to reach for his earpiece. The fingers that closed around his arm trembled, and he could almost feel how cold they were through the fabric of his shirt.

"Do not," she whispered, "please."

He caught her hand as it fell away from his arm, and immediately pulled up her sleeve, running his fingers over the inside of her arm as he examined her… seeing nothing. He reached for the other arm, repeating the process, asking softly, but urgent, unable to hide his anguish.

"_What_ have you done to yourself? What are you taking?"

His mind went racing around a dozen possibilities, each of them frightening him a little more as he slipped his touch to her wrist, to her almost immeasurably frenetic pulse.

"What I must," she said, and her answer stopped him cold.

"Please, Ayatesha," he cradled her hands between the two of his, as if he could warm her; heal her obvious pain simply by the force of his will. "I need you to tell me what's going on. I can't leave you like this, I can't… not… do something. You have to know, I love you."

"Carson…" she breathed his name, "…that… is why I have kept the truth of this from you."

"Kept what?" he asked, and as she freed one of her hands from his and sat up, he flinched, cursing himself for it, and for the shocked catch in his breathing as she waved on the light and in the same movement, slipped the hijab she wore from her head.

She met his eyes, the usual deep brown of hers was blanched to an amber yellow, in places, but like ink on water the two colours drifted in and out of each other, warring around pupils that were barely starting to revert from stretched, and catlike slits… feral… Wraithlike.

"Sweetheart," he reached for her then, resolute against her resistance as she fought being drawn into his arms for a moment before allowing the contact and almost nuzzling against his chin as he brought her temple to rest against his jaw. "You could ha' come to me with this…"

He drew her closer, spearing his fingers gently into the white wisps of her bound hair at the back of her neck, encouraging her to rest against his shoulder as he circled her with his other arm; holding her tightly as a shield against the desolation flowing through him at what he had done.

He wanted to weep… for the lost, for the sick and dying… for Lorne and Teyla… and for Ayatesha – and yet the small, strong woman in his arms denied him that self-indulgent egotism by the very fight she harboured in every living breath she took.

"How could I do that to you," she said, as if taking the words from his mind and laying them out before him, even as her tightly clasped hand let the hijab fall to the comforter, and she slipped her arms around him. "Ana ahebak, Carson. How?"

Yes – he wanted to weep for her, but he did not, instead he eased her head away from his shoulder and looked down into her tortured eyes and told her firmly, "We can get through this, Y'tesha. There _is_ a way to reverse this, and we _will_ find it… together."

Ayatesha took a breath, her whole body shaking with it… before she nodded, and tightened her fingers against his back so that he could almost feel the fear that was as obvious a part of her cells as the rogue Wraith DNA.

"Together," he repeated as her eyes glazed into distance, keeping her with him, keeping her focussed.

"Sawa," she whispered, "Aiwa… yes – together."

Slowly, against her hesitancy, he lowered his lips to hers, the gentle kiss lingering as her eyes fluttered closed, not shutting him out – but drawing him into her pain, to what her life had become since the last time they were together. Then breaking this kiss, he drew her closer again, cradling her against his chest, her head once more on his shoulder.

"There's my good girl," he murmured softly. It was many hours before he moved again.

* * *

><p><em>"Closer even than he… or you."<em>

_"Ancient Ones," he gasped softly. "Forgive my trespass."_

_"It is your Queen that trespasses. It is why she will not sanction your destruction of these vipers in our nest, and why you will do nothing."_

As a commander among the Conclave, it was not exactly forbidden for the Red Queen's son to set foot within the Hive of another queen than his own, and yet, in the wake of the sudden, unbidden memory he felt profoundly uncomfortable; unsafe.

Suspicion had driven his steps, driven him to leave the conclave as had the one he followed; suspicion that was sharpened by the radical – no… heretical – suggestions that the Elder Queen's insistence towards an evolutionary path had sharpened in his gut, like a churning nausea.

It wasn't that he was unaware of Wraith history – of the struggles they had faced in the time before, when hybrid hosts had been the vehicle by which their race had been saved when the queens' fertility – their ability to bring forth young – had been damaged by the radioactivity that had engulfed their world, but they had been _hosts_… nothing more. Such a measure had only been maintained until their scientists had developed the gestation pods, and cloning technology, and then rightfully the practise had been abandoned, reviled… outlawed.

… And yet… here was one among the Elder Queens who had lived through the Reclamation freely championing a return to the dark ages – worse, to use mere _prey_ as a means of reaching for the future?

_Why do you serve?_

"To take back that which is already ours…" he breathed giving words to the strong feelings that were lodged painfully inside of him since his second encounter with the Sentinels.

_For each new light that came, full half of the Parmhunii had faded into darkness to be replaced by their progeny while the mirrors of their yearning slept… But the One had no mirror save herself and so had seen._

_Breaking away from the Parmhunii She ascended, looking down as she drew to herself the Mirrored Ones, one by another taking them to be a part of herself like some great devouring arachnid beast… leaving the Parmhunii bereft and seeking solace of the ones to come…_

No. Somewhere aboard this Hive was the evidence he needed to discredit this Queen – to prove her complicity with the Abomination and he meant to find it. Snarling, he turned his steps toward the Hive's prison cells. He would begin his search there.

* * *

><p>Walking of the necessity of protocol one step behind Malcolm's left shoulder – since it was his <em>ally<em> that would sponsor him to speak during the convocation, Todd fought to contain the ironic smirk bubbling just beneath the surface of his face. The five queens were already _just_ where it would benefit him the most – namely all but at each others' throats.

No single voice could be distinguished from the other, and the air bristled with an almost fierce psionic whirlwind. To any other it would have been uncomfortable, and Todd could not help but tilt his head as he watched the stiffening back of the Wraith he followed – the commander that _he_ had installed to supremacy aboard the Elder Queen's Hive to facilitate this very eventuality… a voice at Convocation.

"—is an outrage to suggest—"

"Madams!"

Todd had to admit, at least to himself, to a degree of admiration as the commander's voice, though barely raised, cut the queens to silence – a silence into which Malcolm swept a low, respectful obeisance.

"What is the meaning of this," the Elder Queen came to her feet, descending the steps toward them, and as she neared, Todd inclined his head, but that was all the recognition he was prepared to give to this queen, to _any_ queen, at least until he had been given leave to speak. Arrogant, perhaps, and inwardly he chuckled at himself, but in order for him to clearly make his point he could not allow himself to be seen to acquiesce to any authority save his own.

"My Queen," Malcolm said softly, as the Elder reached for him, gesturing for him to rise. He did so, but only in so much as to straighten his body – his head and shoulders remained at an incline. Continuing, he added, "Honoured Matrons, I humbly petition you to hear This One in conclave, as I believe the information he brings may have great bearing on the debate currently before us."

_=what does he bring? – tell me quickly before we are overheard=_

_~you are already overheard, Madam~_

_{but not of malice, my Queen… I have allowed him to—}_

_=silence… you, speak quickly now. Answer=_

_~proof, Madam… of true breeding from a human host~_

Todd deepened his bow as the Elder Queen's eyes widened and the slightest of gasps escaped her lips. To the others, he knew, it would look only as if he had recognised her authority as she looked on him.

The first test of his sponsorship came in the form of challenge from his own dam… as he expected it would, and he had already in place an act of daring that would either shoot her down where she stood, of mean his end. As she spoke her challenge, he chuckled wryly to himself and to the other commander and queen he put forth a counter challenge of his own.

"How can this _mere_ male bring anything of value?"

_~she fears what I could expose of her own past~_

He saw the elder cast a cynical look in his direction as he straightened from his stoop, and with a raised ridge, he moved – before any queen, commander or drone guard could reach to stop him.

It was a risk – a huge gamble based on nothing more than a hunch, and a little more than a passing familiarity of the Wraith – former Wraith, he reminded himself – that the humans called Michael, and his science. Snarling he hauled the captive hybrid to his feet by the back of his tunic, and pushed home his feeding hand against the half-breed's un-armoured chest. The barbs around the maw in his hand curled deep into the male's chest and Todd threw back his head, feeling the rush of energy surge from the creature beginning to mingle with his own.

Almost to the last Wraith, queens found their feet, and commanders stepped forward, as if each meant to intervene in warning at his action, but the smugness on the hybrid's face soon turned to alarm as his features began to age; his hair to grey… and for Todd to remain standing, true and strong.

"What trickery is this?" his bitch-dam demanded, and with another snarl, he pulled himself away from the weakened, but still living hybrid.

"It is no deception. This pawn of our enemy is as infected as every other creature in his army," he growled, turning fully to face her, "but if you believe it so, I _dare_ you to try for yourself."

He knew full well she would do no such thing. At most she would send a drone, or lesser commander to sacrifice himself for the sake of verifying the immunity that Todd had now confirmed he possessed. He also knew that doing so would weaken her position before the others, and if – as he suspected – she wished to propose herself as Primary, _that_ she could not afford to do… ah, but he knew his dam well.

"I believe," the Raven Queen, seated to his left, who had toyed with the now terrified hybrid for so long, leaned back lazily in her throne, "that in light of what we have seen, we should hear what this _commander_ has to say."

"I concur," the Blood Queen added her voice to his approval, and Todd swept a low bow of gratitude in their direction, first one, and then the other.

"Honoured Elders," he began rising and turning a slow circle to include them all as he began to speak. "You are most gracious to recog— to recognise—"

He broke off, gasping suddenly for breath, and stumbled backwards, reaching both hands toward his own chest as if in great pain. His legs folded beneath him and he fell to the ground, his back arching and a terrible, guttural moan came from his throat.

"See, my sisters," his dam's voice cut across the terrible silence that fell in the wake of his collapse, "how desperate you are… how quick to believe any straw of hope held out before you."

Her tone was mocking… disparaging… perfect – and relaxing his body, Todd began to fill the Conclave space with a new sound, leaping almost gracefully to his feet as he put back his head and laughed… almost feeling her anger through the impenetrable shield of bravado he had wrapped around himself.

"How _dare_ you," the Red Queen snarled across the space, and Todd rounded on her as if she were a mere drone, his laughter ceasing as though it were a recording that had just been silenced.

"I dare. That is all that matters," he snarled, then throwing wide his arms, facing perfectly toward the entrance through which he had followed Malcolm, he added, "and now that I have your full attention, allow me to show you the true sincerity of my commitment to ensuring the future of Wraith… with… or without the mandate of such progenitors as you."

"Clever," rasped the Raven Queen, "such threats…"

"Oh, no threats, Madam," Todd gave the Raven Queen the benefit of another exaggerated obeisance, "merely the opportunity to be the powers that lead Wraith into a future of continued supremacy, as you have always been."

He met Malcolm's eye, the other commander knew as well as Todd was certain did the queens that it was exactly as the Raven Queen suggested. The threat _was_ real… they could either rally to his side, or fade into the oblivion of obscurity and extinction.

"How?" the Blood Queen demanded.

"I was just coming to that," Todd purred, and gestured toward the shadows at the entrance. A single figure stumbled in, propelled forward by the action of the long staff-stunner her drone guard had pushed her with, carrying in her arms a bundle concealed in dark rags. The woman trembled so hard it was visible to Todd from across the space still between them even as he started forward, and she almost skittered sideways away from the presence of the Elder Queen. Malcolm reached her first, taking the suddenly squirming bundle from her arms, and Todd smiled – he could not have orchestrated a more perfect moment of revelation – as the human woman found her knees in front of the imposing Wraith commander.

"Please, my Lord," her voice was shrill, but clear and infused with a human mother's desperation, "do not harm my son."

"Your son?" Malcolm looked up from the woman now clutching his thigh, and pulled the rags from the child's head and shoulders, revealing the unmistakeable form of an immature Wraith. "This child is Wraith."

"But my son, nonetheless," she said softly.

* * *

><p>Not for the first time that day, Sheppard cursed Todd's ever-loving hide and slapped his hand against the unyielding web-like bars of the cell that stood between him and… what? Freedom? Hardly likely, but to Sheppard, the thought of being at large and relatively lost in the twisting hallways of the Hive was by far preferable to sitting on his backside waiting on some other Wraith to find him and decide his presence was an interesting co-incidence and present him before one of the five queens that the worshipper he'd sent back to Atlantis had said were here.<p>

If locking him in the Hive's brig was Todd's plan to keep him safe – though he had to admit the presence of Malcolm may have forced Todd's hand – then the Wraith had finally lost it completely, and all bets really _were_ off. Of course, Sheppard didn't put it past his Wraith _brother_ to be lying about the whole _keeping him safe_ part, in which case—

"Ah, me and my big mouth," Sheppard hissed, hearing the solid thump of booted feet and Sheppard shrank as far back into the cell as he could, hoping against hope that whatever was coming his way would somehow overlook the shape in the darkness.

The footsteps reached a stomach-churning crescendo, far more than Sheppard had hoped he would ever feel again while being locked in a Wraith cell. If he were honest, he had wanted never to see the inside of a Wraith cell again, yet here he found himself, watching and helpless as lighting somewhere behind the Wraith, reflected red from walls of the Hive, made the silhouetted figure seem like some kind of angel out of nightmare.

The light spilled like blood through the fine, long white hair that spread around the Wraith commander, wing-like above the spreading leather of his coat, as the bars spiralled open to admit him, and from the sheaths at his back he reached for twin blades that reflected enough of the ruddy light to illuminate the cruel, fine features of his face.

"So," he hissed, tilting his head but slightly to regard Sheppard as he climbed, reluctantly to his feet, realising his efforts to conceal himself with shadow had been futile. "This… is what they are hiding."

"Raphael," Sheppard answered obscurely, pulling together the image, and the feelings of menace and desire for vengeance from the Wraith in front of him. "Definitely a Raphael."

* * *

><p>Every part of Alicia screamed at her to turn back, step back and allow the door to close behind her… and yet some inner burning pulled her onwards, inwards, forwards into the seemingly empty room. The door hissed closed behind her, like a closing maw, and the final click of its chitinous jaws halted her progress.<p>

_"Aaah… liiii… cia…"_

The drawn out sound of her name seemed to come from the walls, from the very breath of air around her.

"Who… who's there?" she said, belying her confidence with the stutter-start demand.

"Who's there…?" The sibilant voice was mocking… close, "nervous little human? Afraid?"

"I'm not the one hiding in shadows."

The words tumbled from Alicia's mouth before she realised she had spoken, and it was all she could do to resist the urge to clap her hands over her mouth as if to stop herself from uttering any other terrible insult.

"No shadows between us now." Triple tones combined to stroke the hairs on Alicia's neck as the voice came from directly behind her. She spun around and gasped, almost voicing a scream but for the sudden rush of anger from deep inside as the Queen she now faced sneered, "worshipper… plaything… _whore_."

The anger turned protective, and a proud strength surged through her as she looked with opened eyes on the poor excuse for a Wraith queen that stood before her. She was young, barely grown and where Alicia expected a terrifying countenance, she saw only a sallow, dim reflection of the low illumination around them. Taking in a breath, she stood erect and towered over the Wraith female, in presence if not in stature.

"No plaything," she spat back, stepping forward barely enough to make the queen give half a step of ground. "Never whore… and it is _he_ that worships."

"Liar," the Young Queen hissed.

"Beloved," Alicia rumbled. "Parmhuna."

"Liar!" The Wraith's screech of denial pre-empted the snarling and mantling of her barely clawed hand, and Alicia ducked aside enough that the incoming strike glanced against her shoulder, sending her spinning toward the bulkhead.

* * *

><p>"You are absolutely certain of this child's genetic relationship with this… human?" the Raven Queen stalked around the terrified woman, who now clutched her son in her arms, their heads buried against each other's shoulders.<p>

"I performed the tests myself," Todd answered calmly, "Twice."

He neglected to mention that the initial findings had come from his… extended dalliance with the human doctor Jennifer Keller. Somehow he did not believe that would strengthen his position with these narrow-minded queens.

"They were quite conclusive," he finished, moving to stand behind the human woman, his hands on her shoulders, causing the boy to look up at him, and snarl softly. "A radical in the composition of the human genome, present in this and many other men and women of this galaxy…" _and beyond_ "renders them suitable—"

"Suitable?" the muttered challenge from his dam made Todd turn his head as she finished, "they are _prey_, and this one is no different. There is some lie hidden in all of this – some deception."

"I can assure you, Madam, there is no lie," Todd replied, surprisingly mildly, swatting at the young boy who, still snarling, tried to bite at his hand. "No deception… he's quite feral of course, but—"

"Tell me something, Scientist…" Todd stepped away from the woman as the Shadow Queen, who had so far held her silence since his arrival, rose to her feet with the aid of her commander, and began to descend the steps to the Conclave's floor, approaching him on feet that sounded like the flutter of ancient, fragile wings. He was not fool enough to believe his own senses, however, and swept a low bow as she reached him, and immediately raised him with the touch of her six-clawed hand. "…why the recent visit of your Hive Second to the home of the Sentinel Wraith – the deposition of your Queen's offspring there?"

Inwardly, Todd flinched. He might have guessed that This One would have some knowledge of her kindred's gestalt. With a breath he nodded again with respect, and answered as mildly as he could.

"Regrettably, Honoured Matron," he said, meeting her eyes with as steady gaze as he could muster, "when my Queen conceived she grew weak… sickly. It was for the safety of her young and for my Queen that I took such a… necessary step."

"Sickly, hmmm," the Shadow Queen rumbled, but she did not contradict him. Either she did not know, or she had an agenda of her own to follow, and it made Todd profoundly uncomfortable that he could not decide which was closer to the truth.

"A symptom of the attrition facing our race," he purred instead. "Facing _all_ Wraith."

He felt the solid press of another's mind on his guarded psyche, and looking away from the Shadow Queen to try and find its source, met Malcolm's eyes. Curious, he admitted the other commander.

_{now I **know** you are lying}_

_~but you will say nothing~_

* * *

><p>Unrest pinched his every nerve and Kenny vibrated as if he could hear the silent echo of the two-tone warbling alarm of a Hive in danger. He turned from his subordinate, and uncaring of the impression it gave, threw himself toward the nearest transporter – guided on instinct lower and deeper into the Hive.<p>

The unbearable drumming of his heart, pulsing the threat through his blood, intensified as he materialised and quickened his steps to a sprint, reaching mentally to open the door that barred his way. He leaped into the darkness, snarling as he landed and flung his arm wide at full strength. The backs of his clawed fingers struck flesh, and adjusting peripheral vision told him of the temporary respite from danger as the Young Queen flew midway across the room, sliding to a halt as she landed partly on her side, screaming… enraged.

In the barest of seconds he had, he reached to haul the human from her back to her feet, pushing her behind him as he angled himself to be a shield between the two females. The Young Queen was already part way to her feet, and he could feel her intent – the menace she projected… it kindled his own, protective anger and he snarled across his shoulder at the smaller female human.

"Out!" She did not move. "Get out!"

_:~go~: :~go~: :~go~: :~go~: :~go~:_

He pushed at her, trying to send her on her way toward the door and safety, glancing behind only briefly as the blur of the Young Queen changed her course to come at the woman again, and he leaped to meet her, hooking his talons around the queen's waist and sending them both tumbling to the floor.

"Leave now!" he snarled, pushing the command with all the force of his mind while holding the spitting, snarling queen with his physical strength.

* * *

><p>Alicia stumbled from the room, winded, bruised, and trembling – exhausted and confused, feeling as if she had been sleepwalking as she fell against the nearest bulkhead, and slid down to her haunches, wrapping her arms around herself.<p>

She had no idea how long she remained unmoving there, time blurred, and her retrospective fears sharpened as her mind replayed what had just happened… how _close_ she came to being fed upon by the captive Wraith queen.

"Captive," she breathed the word, frowning, and began to push herself to her feet as the door spiralled open again and the Hive's second in command moved toward her.

"Yes, Alicia Vega," he said, cupping her elbows to steady her as she rose, his chest still heaving with the remnant exertion. "A captive."

Alicia frowned, and reached toward where the leather of his coat was torn, and blood ran in ragged stripes from deep gouges. She said, "You're hurt," but her touch was turned aside by his hand closing around her wrist and pushing it away.

"_What_ were you thinking?" he demanded softly, anger bubbling beneath the surface of the tones he used, and yet, Alicia couldn't help but notice what may have passed for a grudging underlying respect.

She shook her head, and had to confess, "I don't know. I just felt… drawn here."

It surprised her when he nodded, but he gave her no chance to express it, simply suggested with uncompromising strength. "Perhaps I should escort you back to your quarters."

Feeling more than a little shaken, she agreed, and did not object when he kept his closest hand cupped beneath her elbow for support. As they moved, however, a thought occurred to her, and another frown crossed her face.

"How did you—?" she began to ask, but talking over her he gave his answer before she even asked the question.

"I was summoned by the Hive's Queen."

* * *

><p>The preparation room was swarming with combat engineers and marines, as well as the small medical team, and Carson nodded to Zelenka who was gearing up beside them, as he threaded his way through the milling personnel toward where Ayatesha wrestled with the required off-world gear, beside an equally determined Jennifer Keller.<p>

With a smile to Keller, he hooked his fingers around Ayatesha's elbow and drew her a little away from the others, leaning closer to speak with her quietly.

"You're absolutely certain of this?" he questioned earnestly, worry colouring his voice.

"Aiwa, Carson," she answered, reaching up to place a gentle hand against where his heart hammered in his chest. "The people there need medical attention, and they cannot wait for others to bring them to it. _We_ must bring it to them."

"I know that," he shook his head, knowing full well the damage such failsafe devices were designed to inflict, and the casualties that would have arisen… not to mention the risk of infection and— "Just… with all of everything—"

"Hayati," she shifted her hand to his cheek briefly, and drew him down to press her cheek to his, whispering, "I shall be fine."

"I know you will," he said, taking a deep breath, and pulling back to run a light caress around the edge of the uniform blue hijab with which she had covered herself. Then drawing back still further he reached to slip an auto-injector case into the pocket of her tac vest, before tugging on the vest and beginning to fasten it for her, from the bottom up, speaking urgently, but quietly as he did. "I've recalibrated the dosage, and adjusted the composition as best I can to compensate for the decreased half-life. There should be enough to see you through the next twenty-four hours, but then you're gonnae _have_ to come back here, because I can't predict the effects of the latent toxicity, and there's nothing I can do about that I'm afraid."

"I understand," she told him, and he heard her swallow, before she said, "Thank you, Carson."

He wanted to answer, to tell her to be safe, to look after Jennifer… to come back to him… but even as he opened his mouth to speak, the mission commander called them all to order, and his words to her became lost to the briefing.

* * *

><p>"No, no, no," McKay turned from the main screen in the Control Room to face Caldwell, and the faces of Colonels Ian Davidson and Ling Tsai on a secondary screen. "You're not listening…" He marched back to the main screen and with a stylus drew a highlighting circle around two of the Hive-blips on the display. "If we pull either of those two cruisers out of their current position the entire operation is blown. The planet will no longer mask your sub-light wake from their sensors and even cloaked, you'd be detected, and once one ship knows – so do the others. No… it has to be Cruiser Number Two."<p>

He jabbed his stylus onto the screen… sending a ripple of pixels out from the point of impact – much as he intended his disturbance in the Wraith system to do… if only the imbecile Military commanders would pull their heads out of their collectively macho asses and pay attention for once.

"You're certain that you can mimic the bio-signature of one of Michael's Hives," Woolsey asked, sounding somewhat sceptical.

"P-lease," McKay turned a withering look toward the base commander. "As many times as we've faced that son-of-a-bitch in the last few months, you think I can't rewrite a simple piece of code to imitate his ass?"

"But… the minute the other cruisers sense the destruction of the decoy," Caldwell started, not taking his eyes off the screen, "the other ships will alter their position anyway – if nothing else than to… plug the gap – even supposing they recognise the transponder signal as one of Michael's – they're out of position and the Odyssey becomes vulnerable to detection by the other ships even before she gets within beam out range."

"Again with the not listening," McKay almost sang, his teeth vibrating with irritation.

"_We are listening, Doctor McKay_," Colonel Tsai answered, her features tight with concentration, "_It just seems that your plan hinges on many elements of supposition and assumption. I'm uncertain whether I'm prepared to commit the Sun Tzu to such a—_"

"Excuse me," Major Hollick unfolded his arms and stepped forward to be within view of all of the commanding officers present. "Maybe I'm missing the point here, but the bottom line, Colonel Tsai, is that we have men on the ground… and we don't—"

"_I know what you're going to say, Major_," Ling Tsai closed her eyes for a moment, and let out a long slow breath before opening them to address those assembled. "_Unfortunately, the Wraith and this dangerous chimera that you have since created of our enemy may have forced a necessary and distasteful change in protocol. It may be that in this instance we are forced to consider—_"

"No," Caldwell interrupted. "I won't accept that. Yes, Michael and the Wraith are dangerous enemies, but the minute we start talking _acceptable losses_ we make ourselves no better than they are. McKay's plan has a good chance of succeeding, so we have a duty of care to bring our people home. Do I make myself clear?"

"_Perfectly, Steven_," Colonel Tsai nodded her head respectfully, and sat back in her seat.

"_So let me get this clear, Doctor_," Colonel Davidson sat forward in his own command chair, as if the two ships' commanders were somehow part of a push-me-pull-you toy, and McKay fought to keep the twitch of a smile from creasing his mouth. He really had to lay off the pain meds. "_What we've got here is a decoy hit and run. Tsai takes her ship in to draw 'em out, I slip in through the back door, find our people, beam 'em out, and we all get the hell out of there – right_?"

"Essentially," McKay said, nodding. "Yeah."

"You see – that right there," Woolsey cut in, pointing at McKay, and sharing a glance with Major Hollick. "It's this _essentially_ that's the part that worries me."

* * *

><p>Keller paused to push a strand of hair back behind her ear with a bloodstained hand before nodding to Haddad, the two of them heaving the injured marine – as stabilised as they could make him – from beneath the makeshift jig that had been erected by the combat engineers to lift the fallen masonry from on top of him. It was a sickening blanket of déjà vu for Keller, seemingly a lifetime ago that they were pulling bodies from the wreckage of another of Michael's compounds as they had searched for Teyla. In truth it was only about nine months.<p>

"Over here!"

Another call, almost identical to the one that had summoned her and Ayatesha to the aid of the injured soldier they worked to stabilise, came out of the dust filled, suffocating darkness around them. She reached out to grab an elastic tourniquet to wrap above the man's crushed thigh.

"Go," she told Ayatesha. "I've got this."

Ayatesha nodded once, and then scrambled away to give what comfort she could to whomever the engineers had just discovered… turning to call to an orderly… to give instructions to the stretcher team as to where to take the soldier once she had him stabilised. It had become a bitter routine in the last fifteen hours or so that they had worked frantically, without ceasing… expecting at any time—

"Listen up, everybody!" Even as she thought it, Zelenka's urgent voice confirmed her worst fears. "The news is not good, I'm afraid. The pingback from the subspace carrier to warn Michael of what happened here shows that we have less than six hours to finish what we can and get to safety. We have no way of knowing if Michael will send people to investigate, so… we need to have everyone clear before the deadline. I'm sorry, doctors, but it means we're going to have to pick up the pace."

Keller looked up at Zelenka then, and saw that Ayatesha had done the same and she thought she saw a shiver of fear go through the other woman's small frame before she nodded to Zelenka and told him they would be ready.

Keller swallowed hard. Six more hours of safety… six more hours of doing what she could to save lives… six more hours of compassion… and it was compassion that made her force herself to look up and take in the sight of her companion – kindred.

* * *

><p>Sheppard stumbled, his peripheral vision hampered by his already swelling eye, and the jarring step he took to try and catch himself split the gash to his cheek once more, and he felt the run of blood toward his chin. Between the darkness, and the beating he'd taken foolishly trying to get past Raphael as the Wraith had made him in the shadows of the brig, Sheppard knew there was little hope of his making a break for it now – even if he could have reached the ground, for the handful of loose gravel and stone chips that were promised underfoot.<p>

The Wraith halted his downward motion by grabbing a handful of the back of his uniform jacket, and hauling him along.

"Watch the threads," he snapped, but Raphael took little notice, pulling him through the narrowing gap toward the nose of the Hive ship they walked beside, and toward the sinking feeling that bubbled up into his belly.

"And suppose we accept your claims for what they are, and one, or all of us patron your work…"

The voice of a Wraith queen, unmistakable in its tones came from the opening ahead, and with the hand that held his jacket, Raphael all but threw Sheppard to stumble and land on his hands and knees in the middle of a pit formed by the encircling raised daises.

"I would not be too quick to heed the words of This One just yet, My Queens," Raphael growled, following him into the arena. "Nor to those of the one who sponsored his involvement here… who harbours, it seems, not only the Abomination and his works, but also hide the presence of another enemy within their possession: Lanteans."

Sheppard swallowed, and looked up around him, into the harsh and cruel visages of the gathered Wraith queens. Remembering Jet's words, he couldn't help but count them in confirmation… Five… and he could not remember ever feeling such overwhelming menace in all of his encounters with the Wraith. A hundred possible next moves went through his head, each of them becoming bleaker by the second as none of the queens even bothered to verbalise a threat against him.

"All right," he murmured to himself, "Think, Johnny boy… what would Obi-Wan do now?"

First thing he'd do would be to face these bitches on his feet, he decided, and pushed himself to standing, as straight and as fearlessly as he could, and the remaining, rational part of his mind refused to allow him to even glance at Todd, though he could feel the Wraith standing nearby. He felt him take a step back too, and sensing movement around him, lifted his eyes off the ground. Four of the five queens had begun to descend the steps from their daises and were moving toward him, almost in step.

The crushing burn within his mind followed before he had even taken another breath, and he staggered, but refused to surrender to the unbearable crush of it… pushed back… his jaw tight – every muscle straining and veins on his temple engorging in the effort to resist their combined assault.

"I'm not…" he forced the words between clenched teeth, the pain of dragging each of them from the communications centre of his brain, and making his suddenly uncooperative voice comply with his demands… unbearable, "…the one… you're… looking… for…"

Spittle flew in a rush from his lips as he exhaled in effort, gasping to keep them from him… from forcing him to answer the sudden question that echoed in his mind.

_why are you here...? here… here… here…here…_

"I can…" he gasped, "…go… about my… business…"

_why… why… why… why… why…_

His trembling knees buckled as the shadows of the queens crept over him… his knees met the ground hard… but his eyes began rolling backwards in his head even as he fought to maintain his denial…

"Move… along…"

…but even as he congratulated himself in an ironic sense of dark amusement, a quotation from another source resounded in his head – echoing with more finality than even the combined crushing presence of the queens… and somehow, _oh crap,_ just didn't make the grade… and the more he tried to ignore the words his own psyche had conjured against him, the louder they sounded in his mind.

_Resistance is futile._


	4. Act 4

**Stargate Atlantis**

Convocation

_ …wave after wave, each mightier than the last…_

**Act 4**

Michael ran both of his hands into his hair, growling softly with enough menace that as he turned to face the hybrid delivering the news, his subordinate actually took a step backwards.

"When?" Michael snapped. "How long since we received the alert?"

"Minutes only, sir," the hybrid answered, "as you were returning to the ship."

Letting his hands fall to his side, he reached out and snatched the tablet from the hybrid's hand, keeping part of his attention focussed on the space in the chamber behind him; on Teyla's unsettled presence he could feel pulsing in the air. This latest disturbance was _not_ what he needed.

Forcing a necessary shift in focus he took in the scrolling Wraith text and cursed in a wordless exhalation as he saw the location of the latest facility the Lanteans had breeched… _damn them._

* * *

><p>She felt his agitation even through the layers of lethargy and discomfort that surrounded her as she lay restlessly on her side. She took advantage of the momentary distraction afforded her by his agitation and fatigue to push beyond the ever present mental protection and discovered the cause of his frustrated anger.<p>

…_Michael…_

She began to get up as he half turned her way, and held out his hand to her. It wasn't that much of a stretch to reach out and close her fingers around his, allowing him to draw her closer into his side – accepting the tendrils of support that tightened around her as he bound his energy with hers.

"Set a course and make the jump to hyperspace as soon as the ship is ready," he told the hybrid, handing back the tablet. She watched a frown cross Michael's face as she circled around behind the hybrid officer, releasing her hold on Michael's hand.

"At once," the hybrid nodded his head respectfully at Michael and turned to leave, but Teyla had put herself in his path. The soldier glanced fearfully over his shoulder at Michael, uncertain.

"How long will this journey take?" She asked as the hybrid looked her way again. Michael was exhausted – he needed rest, and if this were the only way to ensure that he had the opportunity to get it, then she would do whatever was necessary. The hybrid did not answer, and once again glanced at Michael. Hardening her tone, Teyla challenged him, "I asked you a question."

"Approximately six hours," the hybrid stiffened, his amber eyes shifting almost nervously.

Teyla forced herself to swallow the conflict she felt rising within her – comforting herself in the fact that many a time she had spoken in the same manner to members of the Atlantis Expedition in order to establish herself in the hierarchy there. If she were to similarly establish herself as Michael's equal, she must do the same here.

"Then we are not to be disturbed," she ordered, and stepping aside slightly, nodded toward the door. "Leave us."

When again the hybrid hesitated, she did as best she could to reach within, past her own fatigue and push against the thread that was the hybrid's mind. He moved soon after; hurrying toward the door as she turned her gaze on Michael.

She saw Michael swallow.

"Teyla—"

"You need… to rest," she told him, stepping forward until she could press her palm against his chest.

…_I need your strength…_

* * *

><p>As her hand came to rest against his chest, Michael drew breath, and let it out in a long, slow almost-hiss. He felt the tremor in her fingers, and her own need for rest even more keenly than he did his own. The moment he had set foot aboard the Hive every sense had screamed at him of her condition.<p>

"You have… needs... of your own," he answered, his clipped voice somewhat halting.

_-rest **with** me-_

As much as he loathed giving up the echo of this welcome, oh-so-familiar contact, he slipped his arms beneath her outstretched hand and guided her around him, toward a return to the bed where she had been resting. Deepening concern circumvented his hesitancy toward a greater intimacy still. Her need for sympathetic enzyme had clearly increased in frequency even during the last several hours, though he knew that even without the urgency of that factor, he would never more deny her such moments.

He sat with her, allowing the slide of his fingertips along the inside of her arm as she reached to unfasten his armoured coat.

"Your work was successful?" she asked softly, as she pushed the heavy leather from his shoulders and he shrugged it off.

"I made _some_ progress," he answered her question, at the same time telling her little. "As with all things, only time will provide definitive success or failure."

The gentle pressure of simply moving closer lay her back against the cushioned bed, and he followed her down to stretch out with her, pillowing her head on his arm as she turned toward him.

He closed his eyes as she reached up to trace the shape of his face with her fingertips, in spite of himself leaning into her cool touch, trapping her fingers against his cheek with the press of his own.

"I am cold," she said.

He opened his eyes and met hers as he nodded, not breaking eye contact as he said, "In the absence of sufficient enzyme of specific genotype—" He stopped himself then, softening his expression, before telling her gently, "It will pass."

She took a breath, and beneath his hand her heartbeat quickened as his fingers worked the clasp of the Athosian style gown she wore. He felt her body shift restlessly beneath his, her thigh running against the outside of his leather clad leg, holding his gaze as he slowly undressed her.

He felt the unhurried reverence of his actions building within him as surely as the sweet physical tension that sharpened through his body, straining where he stirred, trapped against his leathers. The connection of their minds weaving through the unsteady breath they shared, the fluttering heartbeat he still felt from her and his own thundering pulse drew them closer still to an intimacy that even few Wraith queens shared with their own commanders.

* * *

><p><em>-let go-<em>

"Teyla," he breathed her name as he returned to cover her, the heat of his skin sliding against hers as he ran his hand upward on her leg to settle her thigh over his hip. The bright blue of the Hive dimmed around them and she gasped softly as he slid inside of her with the same slow reverence with which he had anointed her with her own nakedness; barely felt the sharpness of his latching for the almost burning touch of his fingers over the tenderness of her hypersensitive skin.

"Michael…" his name on her lips was equally a prayer as she arched her back to meet the descent of the wave of his rhythm as he gave himself to the act of loving her. The spiral drew and gathered in her, dissolving flesh, dividing separateness until she found herself again suspended on the shore of the great burning lake.

_-parmhunaeturna-_

…_what is this place…?_

_-no place- -trust- -let go-_

Closing her eyes, she surrendered, becoming the light in the near darkness of the chamber, becoming the fire on the vast burning lake, Queen becoming…

"Yes… Teyla," he gasped against the side of her neck, nipping lightly at her pulse point and drawing a deep needful moan that vibrated through the whole of her pleasure, suddenly more aware than ever of the strength of him, his power moving over her and through her.

The hardness of him filled her, even latched, still stroking her every sensitivity. Never so alive, she clutched at him, and he caught her hand to entwine their fingers, pressing the back of her hand to the bed beside them as she turned her head to capture his kiss, stroking her tongue deeply within his mouth, as his sparred with her own.

…_Michael… …please, I can't—…_

_-trust- -let…-_

—_go; abandon physical; exist_

The dense ball of molten heat exploded, releasing the ecstasy within to subsume, and remake every part of her as she shattered around the rush of Michael's life inside of her, milking him… clawing her free hand, and spearing her fingers into his hair to draw his head down to her breast, her back arched as the climax took her.

"Teyla!"

As he cried out for her she answered with a wordless cry, falling spent… her breath heaving… body trembling beneath his.

_She drifted like a snowflake… a blue-white feather descending on some unseen current to touch as lightly as a kiss to the palm of an open hand._

* * *

><p>"Teyla…" he breathed her name once more against the soft coffee mound of her breast, pushing against her barely before withdrawing his flesh from hers like a whisper. Michael let out a soft, growling breath as he disentangled his fingers from hers, paying no heed to the run of blood across the back of his hand, where her fingernails had cut him, as he moved from her – reaching for the soft furs to cover her.<p>

…_stay… …rest…_

The touch of her mind in his and the lingering touch of her hand at his cheek as he pulled away were the only reassurance of her consciousness, and it swelled the unbearable wave of devotion that covered him.

_-you shall rest protected in my arms-_

She turned onto her side, her palm still open where his hand had left hers, and sliding behind her, he circled her with his arms and curled around her, listening as her breathing settled, slower into sleep, before the weight of exhaustion claimed him.

* * *

><p>…<em>I was summoned by the Hive's Queen…<em>

The words that Kenny had spoken haunted him as he walked away from the centre of the Hive, the queen's quarters – the strange connected irony did not escape him. Nor did the fact that the human – Vega – had told him she felt compelled to explore, that something had drawn her on. He was well aware that the barely mature queen should not have been able to reach out beyond even the confines of her quarters, not with the drugs to which she was being exposed dampening her mental abilities – she certainly wasn't able to connect with the sentient heart of the Hive to even discover Vega's existence, so how had she summoned her… and who, if not the queen, had summoned him?

There was something else going on – something the commander had decided to keep from him – but something of which Kenny would no longer consent to be ignorant. Snarling, he turned his steps toward the commander's laboratory and from there he would access the files that had so captivated the commander when he had the Lanteans, and more specifically, Doctor Keller on board.

He _would_ have the truth of this.

With a deep breath to calm the still-strong anger in his mind, Kenny stepped up to the access console and laid his hands on the interface and though he knew he could not mimic the commander's mental presence, without the commander aboard, all access reverted to him as Hive Second. He had made certain of that when his commander had appointed him. It was a fact that had served him well.

One by one he called up the files. He wasn't as knowledgeable in the area of genetic science, but he was no fool. He knew enough of his commander to have made a point of learning a passing knowledge – enough for him to begin to decipher the information in the files, and as he did, his incredulity – and the uncomfortable feeling that had been growing in him since his commander had brought the humans on board – grew to unimagined heights.

A radical gene in humans, dormant even in most that possessed it, with Ancient markers, markers that were also present in fertile Wraith commanders and in most queens… a shared heritage. Such a thing was heresy and yet – here before him – was empirical, scientific proof.

"To what end, my commander?" he hissed into the silent laboratory, flicking quickly between several file frames to let what information catch his attention as would. It was all so similar, and taxing the extent of his knowledge, that nothing immediately added to the impressions of a study in Wraith and human heritage. Not until a name on one of the slides caught his eye. _Jennifer Keller_.

Kenny snarled softly. He knew full well what manner of dalliance had passed between the human woman and the commander, and that his commander had treated her less than gently; certainly with a singular lack of respect that even humans sometimes warranted. A deep frown creased his brow ridges as he recalled the puffy redness around her eyes in the time when he had come to see to her comfort… carefully hidden to casual glance with cosmetics, but his gaze had not been casual. He had betrayed his commander for the tattered emotions he had seen that day… and, he realised, looking now on the slide containing Doctor Keller's genetic profile, would again if the necessity presented itself.

He raised his fingertips to the screen, as if reading the image by touch. There was the gene radical, and there the additional receptors, proving the radical to be active. There was the transcription model, the simulation showing cell division and—

"Wait!"

The word burst from him as if it were a curse, and his fingers flashed over the keypad as he called up a second file from the computer. More recent, and laid it side by side on the screen with Keller's. The same radical – active; the same transcription model and simulation, except…

"This is no model," he breathed, disbelief stealing his breath. "…No simulation…"

Kenny turned from the screen, gripping the edge of the computer console even as he removed all traces of his intrusion and deactivated it. His stomach churned, and he felt as though fluid, not bones, lay inside of his legs.

…_I was summoned by the Hive's Queen…_

Not by any barely grown mongrel bitch that his commander had picked up on some desolate, hidden world, but by the pure bred _thing_ carried in the human's belly.

Kenny shivered, and pushing away from the console, slipped into the shadows, his head still reeling… and his spine gripped by chill fingers as he could have sworn he heard a light laughter dogging his steps.

* * *

><p><em>"Wilson to Major Hollick - Sir, we have incoming. ETA seven minutes!"<em>

_"Understood. All non-essential personnel fall back to the safe zones. Lie low."_

The lieutenant's report from the cloaked Jumper in orbit, and Major Hollick's terse response in Ayatesha's ear were a stark reminder of the danger any of them faced in being here and in why Carson had been reluctant for her to come.

_"Team two, get to the medical personnel. Escort them to zone five. Protect the wounded. Let's show this creep an empty nest, guys. Hollick out."_

She looked up from repacking the samples as the twisted metal door opened and closed behind her and straightened her back, tensing the muscles for a moment in an attempt to settle the knot that leaning over the packing crates for so long inside the confines of the ruined laboratory had caused. They had cleared away the debris at her insistence so that she could reach anything that remained intact of Michael's research in this place. She hoped that she could find a way to get at least some of it back to Carson.

"Ayatesha," Jennifer's soft, almost hesitant voice sounded behind her. "Hollick just ordered the evacuation protocol."

"I know," she answered just as softly, and released the breath she hadn't realised, until that moment, she had been holding since she heard Hollick's orders. "I heard him give the order."

She turned to face the other woman then; watched the mixed emotions warring over Jennifer's paling features – the worry, the gratitude... the regret and the stern glint of fierce protective necessity that had lodged in the corner of her eye. She saw herself in that spark, and was beset by a sudden nauseating fear that trembled through the whole of her body.

_The irony of the whole situation was not lost on the subjugated thread of humanity – of her self – that mourned deep in the heart of this new existence. They had done this to her in order to force her to find a way to stabilise the change; to allow for the construction of a super-soldier from a fusion of human and Wraith DNA and now their creation had turned against them. What was it that it said in their holy book? Those that live by the sword shall die by it? They had._

_She had worked tirelessly, though not to stabilise her altered DNA, but to find a way to restore her original genome and stabilise _that_. She had always known that Wraith DNA, when introduced into any living portion of the human chromosome, would prove dominant, and would eventually either stabilise by itself or destroy the host organism. It had been designed that way – to be dominant. Carson's experimentation with the retrovirus had convinced her of that._

_The Wraith were a construct; the product of someone's misguided attempt to bridge a gap between matter and energy that had escaped the laboratory and become established in nature – an organism in their own right – an introduced apex predator to rule over the food chain in the Pegasus galaxy._

_...and just like the human soldiers here; just like Professor Frankenstein in Shelley's novel... just like Carson in his creation of Patient 4364 – Michael – the progenitors of the Wraith had been destroyed by their own creation._

_She snarled again, revelling in the deaths she had caused; in the destruction of the computers and their data; momentarily losing her grip on the remnants of her human consciousness and pulled against the chains in which the last remaining soldier had managed to confine her even as she had attacked him. It was a futile gesture, for both of them. He would not survive the mortal wound she had given him, and she would slowly starve to death in the confinement of the reinforced chains. Part of her wondered how long it would take for her mind to disintegrate under the crushing burn of the hunger that she could already feel, hot and uncomfortable inside of her._

"...have to go," Jennifer was beside her when she came back to herself. "Come on, I'll help you."

Keller leaned down then to snap one of the sample cases closed and reach for the handle.

"It is all right, Jennifer," she said, suddenly tired; almost overwhelmed by sorrow. She reached for Keller's hand then and drew her upright again, away from the sample case, and squeezing her fingers, stretched up to kiss first one, and then the other of her cheeks. "Ma'asaalama. Yallah."

Then she turned toward the door, leaving Jennifer behind her, and in spite of herself took a trembling, but deep breath as she felt Keller's body heat move closer; forced herself not to fight as the other woman's arms closed around her.

* * *

><p>"Enough!"<p>

Sheppard wasn't even aware enough to realise that that crushing pressure in his psyche had suddenly fractured until he was released and fell backward. His head impacted heavily against the stony ground, and in reflex he tried to suck in a breath into his straining lungs.

Bright spots flew in the air before his eyes as he failed, and a new, crushing and radiating pain spread from the middle of his chest along the left side of him, numbing his arm, filling him with new panic as he could almost feel his heart's failing beat.

He couldn't die… not yet – he had too much to do – and certainly not like that. It was a mistake, that was all. Any minute now he'd take a breath, steady his heartbeat and everything would be—

A faint cry reached through the pounding in his ears – it sounded raw and helpless; hopeless and his panic turned to horror as he barely recognised the voice as being his own.

_This is it, Johnny boy… check out time… last of nine, all gone._

He felt his face flush and his eyes grow hot with tears as a hundred realisations crowded in on him at once.

_Isn't my life supposed to be flashing before me right about now?_

He would never again lie awake at night listening to the wind blowing over the waves of the west pier beside his quarters; never again tease McKay about being a bottomless pit; run a circuit with Ronon…

_Never got to tell Teyla I love her… God, what an asshole._

The last thought stuck, added to the desolation, with an image of her smiling face, the memory of the one time he'd crossed the line – his lips on hers… her pliant body tense against his. He moaned… the moan became a cry and a new heat – a new pain assaulted his body from the middle of his chest, horribly familiar and yet as different as night from day.

Awareness of the physical flooded back with the pain and Sheppard became aware of the bite of a Wraith hand against his chest, and a cloaked figure crouching over him, holding him up like a rag doll by the torn shoulder of his uniform jacket with the other hand. She snarled at him as his eyes fluttered open, taking her in. A burning heat flowed from the touch, speeding through his veins hot and unkind in energising his body – stabilising his heart – the energy too much for him, he cried out again… trying to articulate his needs.

"Ple— no mo— sto—sto… p… stop!"

The hands released him; the inner scalding faded to an uncomfortable smouldering heat.

"He will tell you nothing in this way," a voice said as he gasped, taking in huge, rasping breaths – trembling, unsteady, his head swimming. "And certain nothing if he dies."

That struck him as funny, and curling around the pain in his chest and belly which lingered, an uncomfortable, dark laughter bubbled up inside of him. He examined the pain then, spread as it was still radiating outward and adding to the horrors coursing inside of his mind he discovered himself hard and aching… The discovery grabbed the pain and stuffed it into his churning stomach, where it bubbled over – a chain reaction that finally gave him the strength to roll to his knees, retching – vomiting – the acid burn in his throat releasing the hot tears from behind his eyes. The bitter laughter became a visceral sobbing, alternated with the clenching of his gut as he turned himself inside out with the product of his nausea.

* * *

><p>"Besides," the Shadow Queen continued as all her sisters turned toward her when she straightened from giving the Gift of Life to the Lantean. Malcolm couldn't help but wonder at her actions, tense with the anticipation of what words she would utter next. "It is past time for us to cease this bickering and fighting amongst us. Would <em>any<em> of us have told the others of a Lantean prisoner in our brig? No… and it seems to me that this queen and her commanders – her allies – have pursued matters pertaining to the survival of Wraith far more than those of you that have done nothing but challenge, accuse and castigate."

Malcolm raised an eye-ridge. There had to be some reason for the Shadow Queen so openly supporting the Elder Queen, but he could not reason it, particularly not as she had told him in so many words that she did not approve of the Elder Queen's actions.

_=what is she doing?=_

_{supporting you, my Queen}_

_=why?=_

The word came as a mental slap, and he could not help but chuckle slightly even as he let the Elder Queen understand his own confusion in the matter. In truth, he was even more disturbed by the whole matter than he admitted, even to his queen.

"Wheels within wheels," he murmured softly, drawing a glance his way from the scientist. This other was dangerous, not only to him, but to all Wraith, and yet he had taken great risks to bring them solutions to problems that the queens had, in their self-serving arrogance, only begun to perceive… and then there was the Lantean…

How, and why would the human have so foolishly interrupted such a gathering of Wraith? How many more were here, and where were they? What was the commander's purpose in bringing that one to the conclave?

"Are you suggesting, sister," the Blood Queen began, drawing herself up to tower over the smaller Shadow Queen, "that we should begin our deliberations, and vote for a Primary from among us?"

"I am suggesting nothing," the Shadow Queen answered, "merely stating facts. This one among our sisters has brought us warning against the former Wraith Scientist, a reminder of our most urgent, pressing need, and a means," she raised her hand to forestall interruption, "however uncomfortable to us now, of addressing that necessity. What have _we_ contributed to this convocation except to doubt, to question and to cast suspicion among ourselves?"

"She has a point," the Raven Queen said bitterly.

"I don't recall hearing very much from her at all, bar now?" the Red Queen all but snarled, turning a baleful gaze on the Shadow Queen. "Except in as much as saving the Lantean's life."

* * *

><p>Sheppard felt the weight of the queens' combined stares turn this way again, and started to curl up on himself, even knowing it was exactly the wrong thing to do. A pale, long fingered hand closed around the wrist of the arm that he had intended to curl around his head in defence, and he felt his shoulder protest as he was all but hauled to stand, swaying and unsteady on legs that were marshmallow puffs.<p>

"On your feet, Lantean," Todd's voice was harsh, a little above a snarl – as if he needed anything more to unbalance him – filling Sheppard with even more confusion.

"Indeed," the Shadow Queen moved closer, and Sheppard involuntarily took a step backward, bringing his shoulders into contact with Todd's chest. "This is no place for the prisoner to await the decisions of our conclave as to his fate."

Sheppard cleared his throat, "If it's all the same to you, I'll be going now."

He was surprised at how much the ineffectual show of defiance buoyed his non-existent, let alone flagging spirits.

"It is not," another of the queens, this one familiar to him answered in place of the other, "and you _will_ be going, yes… back to my brig. Commander…"

Sheppard felt, rather than heard Todd's sigh, and then the Wraith released him, only for his upper arm to be caught in an uncompromising grip, as Malcolm took his arm.

"My Queen," the Wraith's voice was like silk, and against Sheppard's already raw nerves, it grated like nails down a chalk board. His teeth ached in protest.

He didn't have time to contemplate his ill fortune, however, as the taller Wraith began striding off, and at one misstep, Sheppard was certain that Malcolm would drag him the rest of the way back to the brig.

* * *

><p>Isla watched as her lord left the conclave with the Lantean prisoner, and not for the first time, she shivered. Unbidden her eyes were drawn away, to a knot of cloaked worshippers shading in the shadows of the dais on the side belonging to one of the other queens. Impossible to tell from which Hive they came, she could only guess at their allegiance by their position, and even that was uncertain since, at meets such as these, worshippers were often traded between Hives. It was a fate she hoped would not become her lot, now or ever.<p>

Keeping close to the noses of the Hives that formed the ring around the conclave space, Isla moved, silent and watchful, something nagging at her making her want to get closer to these others. As she got closer, Isla could see by what they wore beneath their cloaks, that they were a Handler and several high grade workers. In addition one woman stood, her arms wrapped around herself, dressed as a commander's concubine and newly adorned with the bruises to prove it.

Isla's heart lurched and on sparrows' wings began to fly to the woman, but the sparrow soon became a hawk that twisted, screaming in the air to dive after prey as the woman's voice reached her, returning to the hand of its mistress with its damning catch in its taloned embrace.

"It will be enough," the woman's fingers slipped into the palm of another worshipper's hand. "It will be swift, painful and deadly – you only need a moment."

* * *

><p>The Shadow Queen circled to her place as the others came together. It would be a wordless time... a discussion held entirely beyond the ears and knowing of the servants that would follow them even to death – should it come to that – such was the loyalty commanded by these five.<p>

Raphael moved to take his place behind his queen. His eyes scanning over the other three commanders and one second – where the Elder Queen's commander should have been, but was not. Raphael felt a surge of bitter resentment at that fact. Any other commander would have been castigated beyond belief for his lack of attendance to his queen's needs, but not so that one. That one seems to believe that he stood head and shoulders above his queen, in more than just physical stature, and to Raphael, that kind of heresy could never be tolerated. To add further insult to his already injured sensibilities, his place was taken by the scientist that had interrupted the Conclave... interloper... Raphael's brother.

Sibling rivalry notwithstanding, to see his brother at the shoulder of another – enemy – queen was almost more than Raphael could stand, and the look in his sibling's eyes – cold and calculating – fuelled the fire beneath the already smouldering kindling of his temper. He wanted answers to his many questions, and more than that, he wanted to show the Elder Queen's arrogant commander that his behaviour was unacceptable and would not be accepted, particularly not when his dam, the Red Queen, was elected Primary over the sorry excuse for ancient queens that her sisters represented. Nodding to his second, he stepped back, and once the other Wraith had taken his place behind the Red Queen, Raphael turned and strode soundlessly toward the exit of the Conclave Space.

* * *

><p>Todd chuckled slightly in dark amusement as his brother left the confines of the Convocation. He could not have asked for events to progress closer to accord with his plans – except perhaps Sheppard's experience, for which he felt a pang of regret. He did not for one moment however let that regret dull his senses, ever alert for the moment in which all his plotting and scheming could come unravelled. It would suit him well for only one of these ancient bitches to ascend to primacy over the others, and it was she he stood behind. Were any of the others, particularly his dam, to be elected as Primary, he would have to readjust his allegiance, and that would cost him time – time he knew they did not, any of them, have.<p>

Still, with his brother out of the way, even though he knew commanders were expected to hold their silence during such a time, he was free to insinuate what influence he could over the ancient matrons in front of him. He relished the challenge. In his many centuries it would not be the first time he had manipulated a queen's thinking... nor, he was certain, would it be his last.

* * *

><p>McKay stood tense behind Colonel Tsai's command chair on the bridge of the Sun Tzu. In seconds they would exit the relative safety of hyperspace, relying only on the colonel's wits, and his own genius to get them into position and destroy, or at least heavily damage their target cruiser, before any of the Wraith saw through the deception they wrought. He shouldn't have been nervous; the plan was sound and his genius more than made up for any failings Ling Tsai might have had; but he was. Some prickling, unsettled niggle at the back of his neck, the one that had all of his hair standing to, told him that something wasn't quite right, something had been missed, and that whatever that something was, it was about to come back around and bite him on the ass – hard.<p>

"Twenty seconds to normal space," the calm voice of the Sun Tzu's conn officer broke the tense silence and McKay almost jumped.

"Ready all forward rail guns," Tsai ordered. Then half turning her chair to face McKay she added, "Better hope that this code of yours works."

"And that the Odyssey is in position," the tactical officer muttered as he activated the Sun Tzu's weaponry. "Not to mention—"

"All right, enough!" Tsai finally cut off her subordinate officer, and McKay felt the tightness in his chest begin to slacken. "We're all aware that there are many things that could go wrong, so we don't need to add to them by losing our focus."

"Three seconds… two… one…"

"Open secure channel," Tsai ordered.

"Channel open," came the calm response.

The yawning swirling blue white of hyperspace gave way to the black and pinprick dark of normal space

"Odyssey, this is Su—"

"Oh Crap!" McKay's eyes finally resolved what he was seeing – and it should not have been the sight that dominated the Sun Tzu's forward view screen. Even as his eyes took in the massive black bulk of the Wraith Cruiser, proximity alarms began sounding, shrill and insistent, and even before Colonel Tsai's hurried call for evasive manoeuvres, the deck lurched under McKay's feet as her conn officer struggled with the Sun Tzu's attitude controls, and the inertial dampeners fought to compensate the sudden pitch and yaw.

"What the hell—!" Tsai's voice matched the glance she threw in McKay's direction, and both were colder than the black of space.

"It shouldn't be there," McKay whined, as though the presence of the Wraith cruiser was an offense to his every sensibility.

"We've been spotted," the tactical officer interjected, "Wraith ships in orbit are launching Darts."

"Damn it," Tsai threw McKay another searing glance before demanding of her tactical officer, "Are we still transmitting the false transponder signal?"

"Yes ma'am," he answered after only a moment, "They still think we're the hybrid."

Tsai cursed again, before ordering, "Continue evasive manoeuvres – let's see if we can reach our target."

* * *

><p>Feeling a little more like himself, Sheppard tried an experimental tug against the Wraith's hold on his upper arm. The grasp was unyielding and Malcolm looked in his direction, a feral cat waiting to pounce – and he the mouse.<p>

"Really," Sheppard tried to engage the Wraith in a little of his usual banter – full of a mix of bravado and extremely dangerous inflammatory comments. It was, Sheppard thought, probably not the smartest thing he'd ever done – probably on a par with trying to take on a grizzly bear with not a can of pepper spray within a hundred miles – but if he could just irritate the Wraith enough for the other to make a mistake… "The strangle hold against the upper arm isn't as necessary as you might think. I'm house broken and I come to heel real well both on and off leash."

For a moment, Sheppard thought that the imposing Wraith commander wasn't going to bite – that he would have to try harder, and probably longer, which sucked of course because he knew he probably didn't _have_ time before he wound up in the Hive's brig, at which point he would be totally screwed because… well just because he would. He didn't think the queen that sent him there wanted him for his good looks, charm and witty conversation. Then the Wraith finally spoke.

"Why do you do it?" he asked, his triple toned voice lazy with curiosity and boredom mixed.

"Do it?" Sheppard echoed the Wraith, knowing full well what he was asking, but playing dumb in a continued attempt to aggravate the predatory commander.

"Yes," Malcolm answered mildly. "Your continued attempts to provoke my ire… amuse me, human. Do you truly think I would make such a mistake?"

"You have me all wrong, buddy," Sheppard answered, his heart sinking to somewhere deeper than the liquid core of the planet beneath his feet. "I'm just trying to get along. It's very important to build a good relationship with those who're going to be keeping you prisoner. There was this one time—"

"I think not."

"I don't suppose you're in a sharing mood?" Sheppard asked.

"Tell me," Malcolm said, and something about the edge that he heard in the Wraith's voice made Sheppard feel suddenly very nervous. "Did she ever return to you? The one you spoke with when last we met?"

"Don't go there, pal, you're way off base!" Sheppard snarled, and suddenly his nervousness became anger, and he tugged at his arm again.

"The one you ordered to leave the Hive with the others…"

Sheppard tugged a third time, and this time the Wraith let go, taunting him to lose what last vestige of cool he might have felt. Sheppard spun to face Malcolm, unthinking, beginning to advance toward the Wraith.

"The one whose heart—"

_How does it feel, Colonel Sheppard…?_

"I said don't _go_ there!" Sheppard's snarling words would have done any Wraith proud, and in spite of his recent ordeal, the force with which he connected against the Wraith commander was enough to have Malcolm step back a half step, before he regained his balance.

"A raw nerve," Malcolm continued to taunt him, but Sheppard noted the Wraith shifted his stance to a more battle ready position. The realisation only served to further enflame his already burning anger. He lunged at the Wraith again, this time managing to close his fist around the hilt of one of Malcolm's blades.

"You mention Teyla one more time and I swear—"

"Teyla… yes," Malcolm rumbled, ignoring Sheppard's warning, "I remember the equivalent turmoil in the mind of the one you call _Michael_ at the mention of her name; the thought of her."

Sheppard lunged, swinging the Wraith blade in a wide, horizontal arc in front of him. His wrist jarred suddenly as the steel met its twin. He hadn't even noticed the Wraith drawing his offhand blade.

"—I will carve you a new one!" Sheppard heaved against the pressure of blade on blade, his anger lending him the strength to throw the Wraith off.

"So be it," Malcolm answered calmly. "The Queen had wanted you alive, but if you are determined to die trying to defend the honour of a woman that has already abandoned you for her Wraith lover—"

…_to know that it's me she reaches for in the dark of night…_

Sheppard snarled again and threw himself toward the Wraith, blade leading, and flashing in the muted starlight as he drove the knife forward. Malcolm countered with equal force, and had Sheppard been in any way rational, he would have realised that the Wraith had the advantage of a clear, cold countenance; control.

Sparks erupted into the night air to accompany the bell-like ringing of the blades each against the other as Sheppard moved on instinct to block the Wraith's incoming blow. In the same moment he lashed out with his booted foot against the side of Malcolm's knee, twisting the Wraith's supporting leg as he sought to avoid the threat of injury. Momentarily unbalanced, Malcolm failed to block the downward sweep that Sheppard made with his knife, and Sheppard felt a rush of bitter elation as the bright line of blood seeped through the slashed leather of Malcolm's coat-sleeve.

The Wraith snarled, and came at him again with renewed force. Blocking the four blows in rapid succession, elation soon gave way to desperation as both it, and the edge of his anger faded off, leaving him wondering what in hell he thought he was doing?

* * *

><p>McKay jumped as the panel on his left exploded in a shower of hungry sparks that began to gnaw at his shoulder as the Wraith assault on his well thought out plan punched another hole in the Sun Tzu's defences.<p>

"McKay," the conn officer's voice, raised above the din of the general chaos on the bridge, sounded more desperate than it had a moment before. "I just lost attitude control. One more hit like that and—"

"I'm on it!" he snapped, already turning to pull at the smoking panel, reaching in for the control crystals just behind the partially melted metal. His hands flashed over the heated crystals, even as he continued, "Though how you expect me to be able to fix anything with third degree burns on the tips of my fingers is beyond me-try it now!"

He turned his head toward the centre console, as if doing so would hasten the conn officer's response, and beyond the trio in command he could clearly see the forward view screen, and the tumbling, twisting attacks of the Wraith Darts almost right on top of them.

"Nothing," the conn officer announced.

"Nothing?" McKay yelped, turning immediately back to juggling the crystals in the various sockets of the ruined console, pausing only to snatch a tablet computer from a passing engineer, muttering, "Heap of crap Asgard technology!"

"It's no good," Tsai spat in his direction before she turned back to look at the escalating number of enemy fighters in theatre. "We're never going to make it through that curtain of darts."

"Shields at 37 percent," the tactical officer further underlined just how much trouble one little Wraith cruiser had caused them by not being where it should have been. "Ma'am, I strongly recommend we abort."

"Negative!" McKay said before Colonel Tsai could respond. His voice was brittle with annoyance. "The Odyssey will be a sitting duck if we don't at least _try_ and pull those other cruisers out of her way." He switched another set of crystals, "Try now?"

"And we already _are_ sitting ducks," Tsai said, her annoyance clearly matching McKay's.

"Better us than them," McKay answered, uncharacteristically selfless in his assessment of the situation. "They _have_ to reach Sheppard and the others." Then to the conn officer snapped, "Well?"

The man shook his head. "No response," he said.

"Oh, for the love of—" McKay muttered as he quickly clamped the wires of the diagnostic tools to different nodes within the panel. An explosion from a distant part of the ship rocked the deck beneath him, throwing McKay against the neighbouring panel. He gave a sharp cry as the collision jarred the healing injury to his wrist.

"All of this for one man!" Tsai threw the accusation at him across the wavering heat of the many fires that had broken out on the bridge, "Even a handful of men is not—"

"No," McKay switched two more of the crystals even as he argued with the colonel. "All of this for a whole unit of men, including the military commander of Atlantis _and_ the Intel about the Wraith purpose here. Now?"

The conn officer's sigh of relief, and sudden frantic activity; the sluggish, but obvious movement of the ship's deck beneath his feet was all the answer McKay needed, and he climbed to his feet, stalking toward the command chair and its single, stubborn occupant.

"I realise that you have no concept of what it's like to live under the threat of what will happen if the Wraith gain any more of an advantage in the Pegasus Galaxy but—"

His protestations were cut short as the deck tipped sharply leftward, forcing him to grab for the back of the command chair for balance. He glanced at the screen in time to see the dark blur of a number of Wraith Darts disappearing past the view screen, barely missing the vulnerable forward section of the ship. A thunderous explosion followed barely seconds later, and multiple alarms began sounding.

"The Darts just took out the last of our shields," the tactical officer said gravely.

"Hull breech forward on deck five. We're venting atmosphere," the conn officer added. "Closing emergency bulkheads."

"That's it," Tsai said hotly, holding up her hand to forestall McKay's objection.

McKay stopped mid-breath, his mouth open ready to release the string of invectives already poised on the tip of his tongue.

"I don't want to hear it, Doctor," Tsai made her feelings perfectly clear with the expression on her face. "I'm not prepared to risk my ship any further for a handful of men – no matter who they are… or what Intel they have. Conn., Tactical, signal the Odyssey – abort mission. Get us the _hell _out of here!"

* * *

><p>Malcolm swept his elbow toward Sheppard's face as he threw out the hand holding the knife to intercept the human's obviously tiring, low thrusting swing of the stolen knife. The wily human had evidently anticipated the gambit as he ducked the blow, and pulled back on the knife, depriving Malcolm of the satisfying ring of metal on metal, and more importantly, of his balance.<p>

He would not surrender to such weakness though, and used the tip in his balance to alter his direction and momentum, and came at Sheppard from the other side, ducking his shoulder low as he drove toward the man's chest. The resulting collision took both of them from their feet, to land heavily against one of the nearby boulders and sent Sheppard's blade spinning away into the shadows.

Sheppard let out a cry, and a sharp crack split the relative silence of their shared, rasping breath.

The two of them rolled to the side, eliciting another cry from the injured human now pinned beneath him, and Sheppard clawed at Malcolm's wrist as he thrust the knife toward Sheppard's vulnerable neck. He hadn't counted on the sheer bloody-minded determination to live that the man so obviously possessed, and couldn't help but feel an irritating flush of admiration for the man as the fist Sheppard had made of his free hand as he fought to hold back the blade connected not once, but twice with the side of his face.

Malcolm snarled, and redoubled his efforts to bring the knife to bear against the human's exposed throat. He leaned his full weight into the assay, pressing hard against the injured side of Sheppard's torso, and was satisfied when the human let out an agonised cry and writhed against his pinioning bulk.

"You will not prevail, human," he growled. "Surrender – allow the inevitable. I promise to be merciful. You will feel no more pain."

Sheppard spat in his face and Malcolm's sensory pits detected the iron scent of blood in the saliva.

"Go to hell!" the human gasped, tightening his fingers almost painfully against Malcolm's wrist.

Undeterred, Malcolm pressed the point of the blade against the soft flesh beneath Sheppard's chin, and leaning down hissed against the human's face.

"Rather I would bathe in your life's blood, foolish human," he said. "But you can be sure that I will tell your friends that you died well… before they are given to service me."

He felt Sheppard's renewed anger in the surge of strength that pushed against his hand, inching the knife back just enough to provide Malcolm with the distance he required, playing right into his hands, and for a moment the Wraith commander almost despaired that he could so easily manipulate an almost worthy foe.

Suddenly he lashed out with his free hand against the inside of Sheppard's elbow, tearing his hand away from his wrist, relishing the pain of the deep gouges left by the human's nails against his skin and in the same moment slashed forward with the blade.

A growl to his offhand side was the only warning Malcolm had of the interloper to the fight before a solid mass, heavy with momentum latched around the side of his neck and shoulders and carried him clear of the struggling human. He landed heavily, thrown clear of his quarry, and instinctively rolled sideways to find his knees, and swiftly push himself to a crouch.

He snarled, finding himself face to face with an almost mirror image. The Red Queen's offspring-commander's face twisted into an expression of contempt as he spoke, his voice low and full of unexpressed, frustrated rage.

"You overreach yourself, Commander," he hissed. "The Queens want this human alive."

Malcolm's first answer was a bitter hiss, and to shift the knife he still held, from one hand to the other, and to tip his head as he watched Sheppard's unlikely saviour draw his own blades, both of them.

"Take him then," he growled softly.

_{if you can} {if you can} {you can} {can} {can}_

* * *

><p>Davidson clung to the side of the command chair as the first salvo hit them almost before they could put up shields. The incoming fire from the Wraith was right on target to do the most damage almost the minute they had decloaked.<p>

"Damn it," he spat. "They were waiting for us. What went wrong? What's going on? Someone hail the Sun Tzu."

"No response, sir," his tactical officer answered immediately. "Sensors are reading echoes of a fire fight on the other side of the planet," he hesitated, then added, "and a growing debris field."

"Hail them again," Davidson was out of his seat at once on receiving that news, bracing himself against the continued barrage of fire from the orbiting cruisers. "Shields?"

"Still no response, Colonel," the answer was not what he wanted to hear. "Shields at 85 percent."

"Orders, sir?" his conn officer asked.

"Keep on target," Davidson said, "Colonel Sheppard and his team are counting on us. Until our shields drop below 30 percent we'll stick with the original plan." He rounded on another member of his bridge crew. "You – patch into the comm array from your station, keep trying to raise Colonel Tsai. Tactical – since they already know we're here we might as well give them something to think about. Ready for and aft weapons – fire at will."

"Aye sir," the two crew members answered in chorus.

Orders given, Colonel Ian Davidson retook his seat and turned his attention to the forward view screen as they pushed and manoeuvred their way past the Wraith cruisers, the steady thump of weapons' fire against their shields, and the answering hiss and whine of the Asgard beam weapons and their rail guns strangely comforting.

It wasn't until the first whine of a wing of Wraith Darts screamed past his view screen that the determined colonel began to worry.

* * *

><p>Sheppard rolled to his side, moving slowly against the growing pain in his side, his aching hand pressed against his undoubtedly broken ribs. He tasted blood in his mouth, and it made him feel nauseous, weakened again to near helplessness, and the growing sticky patch against his left shoulder told him he was still bleeding from the slashing cut to the side of his face, and the graze against his neck. Small mercies that the Wraith had missed his artery… if he didn't take advantage of the newcomer's distraction he was just as screwed as he had been in the first place.<p>

He staggered slowly to his feet, swaying slightly, and reached out to steady himself against the boulder that had been the cause of his injury – that and the Wraith – and he couldn't help but let out a bitter chuckle that ended in a rasping, bloody cough as he thought about being caught – almost literally – between a rock and a hard place.

The ringing of steel against steel gave him momentary pause in his contemplation of escape, and he turned his head to watch as the two Wraith came at each other. The blades blurred, light against the darkness. Under any other circumstances it would have been magnificent. Two grand-masters engaged in weapons' play.

Malcolm pressed his obvious advantage of experience against the other Wraith – Raphael, as Sheppard was now certain he should be called, an avenging angel, bitter and dark as vengeance itself – who countered with the strength of a conviction that almost shone from his green-white pallor.

They spun and lunged, pressed forward and gave ground, neither gaining the upper hand, but neither did either one seem in any way disadvantaged, in spite of the face that Malcolm had already been hurt by Sheppard's lucky strikes against him. He had to admit to admiration for the Wraith.

Sheppard shook his head, forcing his attention back to his own predicament. Breathing was becoming difficult. His head was swimming, the two things together told him that the rib had probably punctured something, and that coupled with the taste of blood in his mouth did little to inspire confidence in his ability to get far even if he did escape. He wondered, not for the first time, why it was he had sent Ronon away. Sure, the Satedan was hot headed, but rather a hot headed friend in a fight than a cold blooded almost-ally… and he figured that Todd was his best, probably his _only_ hope for getting out of there alive.

In the same moment that he turned to try and find an exit; find a place to hole up and wait for the other Wraith to finish whatever game it was he was playing with the Wraith queens – and Sheppard had no doubt he was playing some kind of game –additional footfalls, coming closer, stopped him cold as suddenly the clearing in which they had been fighting was encircled by Wraith Drones, each bearing staff weapons, and effectively put an end to the fight between the two Wraith.

Among the newcomers, a single subordinate commander, who almost bowed in deference toward the two commanders. Standing as close as they were, each to the other, it was hard to see who was the intended recipient of the honour, at least until he spoke, facing Malcolm.

"Primary Commander," he said softly, "The Primary requires—"

A whining screech from overhead, and a fiery flash cut off his words, and drew all attention skywards as a Dart, damaged and in free fall plummeted toward the ground, passing over their heads.

Malcolm was the first of all of them to look higher, and following the Wraith commander's gaze, Sheppard realised the flashes he saw in the night sky were anything _but_ shooting stars.

"Weapons' fire," he gasped, then making an intuitive leap, he added, "McKay…"

Evidently, Malcolm heard him, and turning his way, snarled, "Lanteans!"

"Don't look at me, pal," Sheppard managed to draw breath enough to speak with some force, "I had nothing to do with this."

He started trying to back away, but Malcolm glanced beyond him, and Sheppard suddenly found himself staring at a dozen staff weapons as Malcolm turned his attention to the other Wraith commander, their animosity of only moments before suspended if not forgotten.

"We must get the Queens safely away at once," he ordered, evidently not having missed the adjusted title by which he had been called, "and disband this Convocation."

"Agreed," Raphael answered, already turning his steps back toward the meeting place. He paused just as he drew level with a narrowing of rocks that formed a natural entrance to the rubble strewn clearing they had occupied. "And Commander…"

Malcolm turned to fix the other Wraith with an uncompromising stare. Sheppard shivered. There was murder in Malcolm's gaze.

"…this is not over."

"Barely begun," Malcolm agreed. Then with a flick of his long hair as he turned his head back to the subordinate commander he ordered, "Bring the Lantean."

Sheppard's straining heart sank into his boots as he realised he was right back… way beyond square one.

* * *

><p>"Shields at 38 percent, Colonel," the Odyssey's tactical commander was forced to raise his voice above the many alarms sounding across the bridge. "We can't continue; there are too many of them! 35 percent."<p>

"Stay on course," Davidson said and leaned over the back of the conn officer's chair, encouraging the pilot at the same time as keeping an eye on the readings on the man's sensor screen. "As long as we have that transponder signal on our sensors, I'm not giving up on them. Time to range?"

"Twelve minutes," the tactical officer replied.

"Can we read who?" Davidson asked.

The conn officer shook his head, "Not yet. The interference is still scrambling the signal and there's still no guarantee that we can get a clear enough lock even when we get within range. I've never seen this before, Sir."

"And of course McKay would be aboard the Sun Tzu," Davidson remarked as tension descended on the bridge to smother all conversation until the bridge rocked violently again under another barrage of Wraith weapons' fire.

"Eight minutes," the conn officer read off.

"Shields at 32 percent, Colonel—"

"No. Not yet," Davidson interrupted, anticipating what his tactical officer had been about to say. "Plot a direct route out. Direct. I don't care if we have to push a few of those cruisers out of the way as we leave."

"Sir, with our shields depleted…"

"Don't give me excuses, man," he snapped, "just make it happen."

"But, sir," the tactical officer was not going to give up easily. "We can't help them escape if we pick them up and get blasted out of the sky."

"You heard me, Reilly," Davidson said softly, "We're going to make this happen."

"Sir, it's Ronon, and AR-3," the conn officer announced.

"Sheppard?"

"No sign, sir," the conn officer shook his head sadly, "but if he's at the centre of that confluence of energy signatures we detected, there's no way we're pulling him out."

Davidson nodded. "How long before we have Ronon and the others?"

"Three minutes," the tactical officer added. "Shields just hit minimum safety – 30 percent."

"Keep going," Davidson ordered. "Override authorisation, Davidson three niner tango echo."

Davidson returned to the command chair, trying not to let either of his senior officers see how white his knuckles were as he gripped the armrest, murmuring to his ship to hold together just a little longer.

"28 percent," the tactical officer announced as another spray of enemy fire cut across their bow and rocked the ship wildly, "Orbital threshold achieved, hull temperature rising."

"Hold together, baby… I know you can do it, just hold together."

"I have a lock," the surprised tone of the conn officer shook Davidson from his fervent conversation with the only woman that currently occupied his heart.

"Get them out of there," he ordered.

"Shields down," the tactical officer announced. "Go!"

A shower of sparks flew down from the ceiling of the bridge as the weapons' fire continued, and without the shields, even as briefly as it was, penetrated the hull as easily as a hot knife through ice-cream.

"Hull breech, deck 6!"

There were times, and this was one of them, when Davidson could wish that his tactical officer were not quite as efficient as he was at reporting the condition of the Odyssey. In the wake of that thought he blinked as the dim lighting conditions on the bridge brightened momentarily as the beaming technology activated and resolved into the surprised looking members of AR-3.

"Welcome aboard the Odyssey," Davidson nodded to Ronon, then ordered, "Get us out of here. Divert all power to forward shields, ready aft rail guns, continuous firing."

"Aye, sir," the tactical officer responded. "All power to forward shields, aft rail guns to maximum, continuous fire… engaged."

"Sheppard?" Ronon asked, already pushing his way toward Davidson.

He shook his head, "Couldn't get a lock on his transponder. I'm sorry, Ronon, Sheppard's on his own."

* * *

><p>Keeping to the shadowy edges of the group surrounding the new Wraith Primary, Isla glanced nervously toward the small knot of exchanged worshippers that followed the hurrying group of Wraith at the rear, only slightly in front of the drones that half led, half dragged the sickly looking Lantean human between them.<p>

She could not explain the unease she felt, only knew that it was as strong as any feeling she had ever possessed. There was something that felt distinctly wrong about them. She glanced toward her commander, walking at the Primary's side, her hand on his arm, walking in state even though their need to quit the meeting place was more urgent now with the advent of the orbital battle between the Wraith and the Lantean interlopers.

"My Queen, wait," one from among the group of worshippers called out, and unused to being interrupted, the queen paused in her step, and began to turn. Isla took a breath and started from the safety of the shadows.

* * *

><p>Malcolm felt the tug on his arm as the queen began to turn just as he spotted the movement coming at them from two directions at once. Sensing threat, he knew he could not respond in both directions. He hesitated for just a fraction of a heartbeat. It was enough.<p>

The cloaked worshipper pushed his way through the band of subordinate Wraith commanders who made up the poor line of rear-guard to the queen and her entourage, and only at the last second did Malcolm see the crystalline dagger in his hand, raised to strike.

"Handmaidens! Look to your queen!" he called urgently, but the women, unused to that part of their duty, were slow to respond and milled around in chaos, adding to the ease with which the enemy worshipper reached the queen.

Crystalline dagger… Malcolm's mind reeled in horror – that could mean only a single truth. The blade was poisoned with a substance, fear of which was only equalled by the plague wrought on Wraith by the former Wraith scientist. A poison so strong that it corroded metal in seconds, and so virulent once in a Wraith's system that a single drop would bring a slow and lingeringly painful death… and he doubted that if the worshipper had gone to the trouble of coating the blade, it would not be with a single drop.

He turned and drew his blade in the same moment, meaning to meet the plunging dagger and turn it aside, but the worshipper was more prepared, and lunged forward with a second, identical blade too far out of Malcolm's reach.

"My Queen!" Malcolm cried out the warning, hoping that the queen herself would be possessed of sufficient faculty to deflect the knife on her bladed finger-guards. But she mistook his intent and stretched out her hand too high to catch the second blade. Time slowed and there was nothing he could do.

* * *

><p>Sheppard watched through eyes dim with pain at the unfolding drama. The drones holding him had stopped walking and held him slumped between them. It suited him. With no movement the growing pain subsided to a dull ache, and he could at least draw breath enough to clear his sight and allow him to see what was happening.<p>

A lone figure ducked under the Wraith queen's outstretched hand, and put herself between the attacking worshipper and the queen. The sound of the blade penetrating flesh was sickening, but was nothing compared to the cry of mortal agony given by the woman revealed as she threw back her head and her cloak fell away.

"Isla!" Malcolm's voice, raised and coloured with an agony of his own surprised Sheppard, and when the Wraith moved to catch the dying woman, he met the Wraith commander's eyes, and saw in them, for just a second, an expression of a lifetime's love lost.

"Holy shit," he breathed, then gasped as a hand closed around his arm.

"Come with me," a familiar voice purred almost in his ear.

* * *

><p>Malcolm lifted Isla's body against his chest even before she hit the ground, holding her close as her convulsions began. Oblivious to all else but Isla's pain he promised eternal vengeance against the perpetrator of this terrible scheme against his queen – against a servant who had been with him for most of his lifetime.<p>

He raised his feeding hand, uncaring of what might happen to him in the wake of such an act, preparing to give the _Gift_ to the dying woman in his arms. His failure had allowed this. His sacrifice would be little enough recompense for her life.

Her wrist weakly met his, but pushed his hand away none the less, accompanied as it was by a single rasped and distantly echoed word.

"S…ur…vive…"

_::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive::_

* * *

><p>Todd stopped walking as soon as they were a safe enough distance to be outside of the blast range of the Hives as they took off from the planet's surface, and no longer supported by the Wraith's grasp, Sheppard sank to his knees, and then collapsed forward to roll onto his back, desperate for breath, shivering in pain; his body in shock.<p>

"This is getting to be a habit, Sheppard," Todd crooned as he crouched at Sheppard's side, pulling aside his shirt and running his taloned hand down the injured side of his body. Sheppard didn't even have the strength to cry out as pain blossomed through him once more.

"Hmmm," Todd crooned, "broken… and I suspect internal injuries. I could help…"

The tone of amused irony in the Wraith's voice was unmistakable, and in his mind, Sheppard was already calculating the cost that Todd would bring to bear for such _help_.

"I… I ca— I can't—" he gasped.

"Save your strength," Todd instructed softly. "It isn't every day you survive a mental assault by five of the oldest queens in existence, and a physical battle with one of the oldest Wraith commanders."

"Sur…vive?" Sheppard's shivering broke the word he forced from his lips.

"Yes, John Sheppard," Todd said softly, shifting his hand back upward over Sheppard's injured chest, "survive. Something tells me that we may yet need one another, and besides, I am not yet ready to dissolve an alliance that has so far proven to be… most profitable."

Todd looked skyward, and Sheppard couldn't help but follow the direction of his gaze, watching as the five dark shapes – like angry storm clouds in a sky darkening toward dawn – disappeared into the obscurity of five receding pinpoints of light.

Then Todd flattened his hand, snarling as his maw latched onto Sheppard's naked chest, and Sheppard finally found the strength to cry his agony – emotional and physical – into the coming dawn.

* * *

><p><strong>Act 5<strong>

As Woolsey shook his head, Ronon growled softly and the growl became words as he tried to remind the base commander, "We don't leave our people behind."

"I'm sorry, Ronon, truly," Woolsey answered, "but in this we have little choice. Through one thing and another we don't have the resources to commit to a full scale assault against five Wraith Hives and their entourages – and at this point, that's what it would take to rescue Sheppard."

Ronon rumbled his displeasure, and around the conference table he watched as McKay and Beckett shifted uncomfortably.

"What about a small team in a cloaked Jumper?" Beckett offered. "I could—"

"I'm sorry, Doctor Beckett, but with both Doctor Keller and Doctor Haddad offworld, I need you here." Woolsey countered. "Believe me, I've considered every possibility. I want to bring Colonel Sheppard home as much as each of you, but I'm afraid we have to be pragmatic here. The likelihood of his survival in among so many Wraith is slim to none… so…" Woolsey paused, taking a breath before he continued, "In consultation with the SGC and the IOA, as of two hours ago, Colonel Sheppard has been declared KIA. I'm very sorry."

"What?" McKay exploded, sitting forward in his seat so quickly that he moved the conference table, and Ronon's anger was a mirror to McKay's incredulity as the scientist continued, "You can't do that!"

"It's already done," Woolsey said softly, "And as soon as Major Hollick returns from off world with the others, he'll be appointed as Military Commander of the Atlantis Expedition. I'm to return to Earth briefly to sign all the changes, including Hollick's promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, but we have to continue, gentlemen. For the sake of the Pegasus Galaxy we can't just stand still for the sake of one man… as much as we might want to."

"I won't accept that," Ronon growled, standing up abruptly, and starting for the door.

"Ronon," Woolsey called after him. "We're not done here…"

"Yes we are," Ronon answered, barely breaking stride as he turned his head, and looking first at Beckett then McKay added. "I'll wait in the infirmary until Chaya can be moved, then I'll… head out to the Athosian settlement I guess."

"Ronon, please…" Woolsey began, but was interrupted by the sound of the alarms, and Amelia's calmer voice announcing an unscheduled dial in.

"Sheppard?" Beckett looked over at McKay, then at Ronon and the hope the Satedan saw in the doctor's eyes reflected his own, as all of them hurried to join the security team already assembled in the Gate Room.

"Amelia?" Woolsey asked, as they waited.

"Major Hollick's IDC, Sir," she said. "Must be the team returning from M7F-371."

* * *

><p>Carson couldn't supress the rush of relief at Amelia's words, and glanced at his watch. It had been well beyond the 24 hour limit he'd given Ayatesha, and he suspected she would need immediate medical attention. Without thinking he reached up and keyed his headset mic.<p>

"Infirmary, this is Doctor Beckett, stand by for critical medical admissions." He blushed only slightly when McKay threw a worried glance in his direction and then shrugging answered, "Just a precaution; better for them to be ready and not needed, than the other way around."

"Guess so," McKay answered, tension colouring his own voice.

"Lower the shield," Woolsey ordered, and the space before the Gate fizzled for a moment, before resolving into a clear passage into Atlantis.

Beckett found himself holding his breath as personnel began to step through the event horizon. His eyes searched the growing crowd for signs of the Egyptian doctor, his chest growing tighter with each person that stepped through that was not her. He glanced at Rodney, and saw the echo of his own anxiousness written on his friend's face, no doubt looking for Jennifer.

As the rate of incoming personnel slowed, Beckett stepped forward, ready to intercept someone, ready to tackle the mission commander, but with each person he asked, he received only headshakes and expressions of sympathy until finally Hollick stepped through the Gate and with a gesture ordered the wormhole shut down. The resulting sliding-hiss-pop of the wormhole evaporating to nothingness sounded like a death knell in Beckett's ears.

His usual patience and placid nature dissolved and he advanced on the newly promoted military commander, and before the man could step away from the ring, grasped both lapels of his tac vest and drove him back against the curving metal of it.

"Where is Doctor Haddad?" he demanded as the man's back collided with the ancient metal.

"Carson," Woolsey called in warning, but Beckett ignored him.

"Doctor Beckett," Major Hollick said softly, sounding overly sympathetic. "Please…"

"Don't you _please_ me, tell me where she is. She's sick. She needs medical attention. You—"

"There was nothing we could do, Doctor," Hollick began, but Radek cut him off, laying a gentle hold on Carson's arm until the doctor let go of him.

"Carson, truly, I'm sorry. We searched as soon as Michael's forces had retreated, as well as we could without the benefit of combat engineers," he said, "but there was no sign of her, or of Jennifer in the parts of the building we could get to. We can only assume that they were both buried deeper and—"

Zelenka shook his head, but Carson wasn't hearing him any more. With the mention of Michael's name he knew – without a hint of doubt in his heart – that it wouldn't matter how much or how long they searched – they wouldn't find Ayatesha anywhere in among the wreckage of the village.

The fact that he was also certain that she remained alive was a comfort that registered somewhere around zero degrees kelvin. He turned his attention to McKay as the man exploded beside him, letting _him_ make all the noises of protest that he should be making over the missing personnel. He stood mute as McKay railed and demanded a return to the planet with combat engineers to dig the women out of the wreckage of the building – that he didn't _care_ if all they uncovered were their bodies, that they deserved to be brought home… given a decent burial – all the things that Beckett knew he should have been insisting. All he could do was stand in horrified silence, understanding all too well the reasons Michael would have had for taking Ayatesha, at least, and cursing himself for being so much of an open book before his creator. A large part of him also stood silently wishing he could ease Rodney's pain by telling him that likely Jennifer was alive and in Michael's hands without incriminating himself and his complicity with their enemy any more than his silence already had.

Their captivity was on his head; to ensure his compliance with the deal he had made with the devil himself.

* * *

><p>The unnatural sleep gave way to dizziness, and then to the trembling burn coursing through her blood, and Ayatesha moaned as she regained consciousness. As her awakening mind realised her state of being her hand rushed to where the chest pocket of her tac vest would have been. She panicked, awakening still more as adrenaline flooded her body when she found both the tac vest, and the contents of the pocket, missing.<p>

She pushed up with her arms, effectively bringing herself to her hands and knees, and dry heaved as the dizziness increased to nausea. She took deep breaths to try and steady herself and understand her surroundings. Beneath her hands and knees the floor, a hard, cool surface with an underlying dampness that seemed to permeate the first several inches just above it, vibrated softly. A ship. She opened her eyes then. Already they were sensitive with the beginning of change, and she knew that the blue-lit walls around her would have shown much darker to her own eyes. A Hive ship.

She raised one hand from the floor again, to run it the length of her torso, checking her first impression of the missing tac vest... her breath hitching on the beginning of a sob as she realised her first impressions had been correct.

"Is this what you are looking for?"

She looked up at the movement of a figure from the shadows as it moved into the light surrounding her; sat back on her haunches and watched, her trembling increasing as Michael – she knew him at once... felt him – held up the last remaining, narrow cylinder of serum already loaded into the auto-injector.

"Michael, please..." The words tumbled out of her before she could catch a hold of her reeling mind to prevent the show of weakness that the words represented. She snatched a breath as he stepped closer and began to move around her, his steps slow, almost measured, speaking as he moved. She could feel his gaze almost like a touch as he circled her.

"Please rest assured," he began, "that there is no need for alarm. I... understand... what it is to lose one's sense of self."

He came to a stop at her left and reached down, offering her his empty hand. With only a moment's hesitation, finding she was still afraid, but curious at his words, she slipped her hand into his and with his help, started to get to her feet. His fingers tightened around hers as she swayed slightly and voiced the pain that movement always caused her during her conversion. She had no choice but to accept his help until she could stand alone.

"Thank you," she said quietly, her voice barely on the edge of being her own, and released his hand. He, not she, moved away then, continuing his final circuit of her to stand facing her in the dim light and barely nodded to acknowledge her thanks, regarding her and apparently waiting for something. For her part she took in the sight of him – his sandy hair, his pale skin and engorged veins visible through the translucent quality of it... the commingled human and Wraith traits on his face lending him a bizarre nobility of sorts; nobility that was emphasised by the burning gold of his eyes. She had seen images of him, reconnaissance photographs taken by Atlantis' intelligence teams, but as he stood before her, those images might as well have been a child's drawings for all the similarity they possessed – all the sense of him that they conveyed.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked, apparently ending his waiting, as he smiled slightly, and let out a breath in an almost-chuckle at her question. "What is so funny?"

"Most people usually ask what I intend to _do_ to them," he told her softly.

"I am not _most people_," she answered.

"This, I know," he said. "I know you better than you might think, Doctor Haddad."

"From Carson's mind," she as much stated as asked.

"From Doctor Beckett's mind," he confirmed. "But to answer your question – let's just say that you were... caught in the cross-fire between my people, and yours. I had you brought here to keep you safe."

She opened her mouth to argue the fact, but halted even before the first word came from her lips as she was suddenly filled with the intuitive knowledge that he did not mean because of the fight that had taken place on the planet – he did not mean to keep her safe from that.

"I see you understand," he said. "Good. I also have no intention to make you suffer through this change that is progressing in you even now." He stepped closer again, and deliberately ran his fingers the length of her right arm until he could raise her hand in his and placed the auto-injector into it before releasing her. Then responding to her unspoken _why_ he said, "I told you: I understand what it is to be forced to live as you are not."

She hesitated, though not because she suspected any foul play on Michael's part – more that she remembered what Carson had warned her about the increased strength of the serum in the vials he had reconfigured for her. She looked up as he felt his quizzical expression.

"Carson... warned me of a latent toxicity in the adjustments he made. He told me I would have to return to Atlantis following this final dose of the serum so that he could treat that," she said, but even as she spoke she began fumbling with the cap on the auto-injector with uncooperative fingers. It was – as always – as if they belonged to someone else, and she had little control over them, and even less feeling – other than the spasms of pain that radiated, it seemed, from every nerve ending.

"It is nothing we cannot treat here," Michael said, his voice almost compassionate as he stepped forward again, and took the auto-injector back from her struggling hands. He deftly uncapped the device, and gently pushed back one of her sleeves to expose her arm and pressed the needle to the vein just below her elbow, as he released the stream of serum into her blood he finished, "if necessary."

He slipped his hands beneath her elbows as the action of the serum began in her and her knees almost buckled. Her responding grip on his arms was automatic, an unconscious action as he supported her. In spite of herself she leaned against him, fighting for breath and drawing on the strength that he willingly extended to her... feeling the rush of it extending from the way he joined his consciousness with hers.

_-we are a mirror of each other, you and I- -you and I- -you and I- -you and I-_

She looked up at him then, drawing another breath as she fully understood just how accurate his somewhat poetic observation truly was... and as their eyes met, she felt him take a word from her mind, and give it back to her in the form of a whispered appellation.

"Ya ukhti." _Sister._

* * *

><p>The cloaked worshippers looked up as his steps disturbed the hushed and echoing whisper of plainsong that sighed through the crystalline structure of the uppermost chamber of the Hive, separated from space only by the transparent chitinous dome that would withdraw at a mental command.<p>

Stalagmite towers surrounded the bier on which the figure lay, motionless, covered from chest to knees in a drape of white silk already sullied with the spreading stain of blood. Only the hesitant, reluctant straining of her chest to rise and fall in a soundless rasp convinced him that she yet lived… her eyes remained open, unfocussed as if already staring into the vast and icy emptiness of space.

A musical trickle of water released the scent of Death-Lotus flowers into the air, as the four worshippers began to anoint her arms and legs in anticipation of the end of her life… the reverent ritual performed only for the most respected of Wraith Queens.

Malcolm curled his fingers into fists against the short crystal plinth at the foot of the bier, the hiss of his breath hard and bitter as he exhaled a long slow breath, his eyes as fixed as hers.

_{at least they have given you this}_

"Commander?"

The Wraith overseer's voice was hushed, but a disturbance none the less, and Malcolm hissed as he turned his head to pin the subordinate with a burning feral stare.

"What do you want?" he breathed the word-sounds sub vocal in his crushing grief.

"The Primary…"

Malcolm breathed out another long, slow breath, turning his gaze back to the figure fading into night.

"Lives," he said, and could not keep the bitterness from his tone. He took another breath to try and settle the churning uncertainty and then looked at each of the worshippers and the overseer in turn before ordering, "Leave us."

"My Lord—" the overseer began to argue.

"Get OUT!" Malcolm roared, and pushed the command so hard that the other Wraith staggered, a run of blood falling from his nostrils to splash against the leather of his chest; barely gave them time to scurry like rats through the doors before he sealed them closed, like guillotines to slice the unwary in two.

Only when alone did he finally move, stepped within the wall of crystal to kneel at the side of the only companion he had known through countless centuries; laid his hand on the cold of her brow, his face creased in anguish.

"Such… misplaced loyalty, Isla…" he whispered, then picked up the cloth, scented with the water, and began gently to continue with the washing, "Such—"

A rasping breath cut through his whisper and his eyes flashed up to capture the shifting prisms of light in Isla's as the tears in them amplified the guttering spark of her life.

"M… M… M—" her lips moved as if strangers to her to shape the beginning of words, but he rose up over her, shaking his head.

"No… hush, little one, do not try to speak." Hope, sharp and painful lodged in his breast. Three Wraith had spent themselves at the Queen's command to try and save her – neutralise the poison that had coated the blade, but to no avail as the insidious harm had still crept through her blood and bones, and yet in the hours that had passed since then it seemed that she, herself, had beaten back Death's wings.

"Sur…vive," she wheezed, as if explaining how, or why.

"Isla," he whispered, and reached for her, an almost physical ache in the palm of his right hand, but she caught his wrist in frigid fingers.

"Don't," she told him. "The… risk…"

Slipping his left hand under her back, he lifted her almost without effort, cradling the back of her head in his long-fingered hand as he leaned down to nip at her lower lip until she felt him – until he drew the gasp from her parted lips and captured them fully into his kiss.

_{is mine to take} {mine to take} {take} {take} {take} {take}_

Deepening the kiss, as her touch fell away from his wrist he pressed his right hand to her chest, the barbs beside his feeding slit sank deep and true as he began to feel the visceral pull from the centre of him, hot and so painful it was almost an ecstasy. She gasped, a shrill sound, but it was strong, and pulled away from the kiss, falling back against his supporting hand. She took a huge breath as if no air had graced her lungs before that moment and then he felt her push against his chest, and opened his eyes to look at her, vital and alive in his grasp. He slowed the Gift of Life to a fizzling, sensual tingle left to linger between the two of them, moving to join her more fully atop the softness of the flower-strewn pillows of the bier.

"My lord," she said, her voice almost hale, "you should not have."

"Oh, but I should," he answered, and tipped his head to the side, regarding her with the open edge of invitation in his eyes. "Your actions saved the life of our Queen – our Primary."

"Irrelevant," she said without hesitation, then let out another soft gasp as the fingers of his feeding hand began to walk a long, slow trail down over the swell of her breast, to the newly healed flesh where the near fatal wound had been. Her hands flew to his chest, and then one flashed to catch his wrist again as he continued the gently descending caress. "If you would send me away again, please… do not—"

"I mean to send you nowhere, Isla," he told her, drawing her closer even as he eased her down beneath him. "You are, now and always in my service, and under my protection."

She took a sobbing breath, her eyes filling with renewed tears as she slackened the tight grasp she had on his wrist and instead slipped her fingers over and around his, and guided his touch lower still.

"Please," she whispered softly, arching so that she could reach his cheek with her lips and parted her thighs to admit the slow, sure touch of his fingers between the soft folds of her flesh.

* * *

><p>Isla sobbed aloud as his knowing touch stroked and stirred her body. Between deep sighs and stuttering breaths she unbuckled and unclasped what barriers remained between them, a deep longing – a painful need to be redeemed in the possession of her lord pulsing with her every heartbeat… crying out against his lips as he removed the touch of his hand from her body, so lost in it; in him, that she did not realise it was to join with her more intimately still that he abandoned her until she felt the ridged head of his risen length press between her lips as he entered her.<p>

Rising over her, he raked both hands the length of her body, circling her hips to slip his hands beneath her back, drawing her closer, angling him deeper still as he alternately filled her and glided away, rocking against her until the tight pleasure inside her threatened to burst.

"Not yet," he whispered.

_{not yet} {yet} {yet} {yet} {yet}_

He wrapped his mind around the last vestige of her control and pushed the almost-climax back… away… denying her release. Maddening… and she sobbed for him, a name she harboured for him but had never dared to voice…

"Beloved… please…"

…and she felt his mind-presence tighten before opening to her, filling her with the truth of himself.

She cried out wordlessly at the bite of his opening – such trust to give to her – taking her as equal and not as servant or chattel, the brief pain of it was nothing when compared with that.

"Yes, my Isla," he breathed the words over her lips, and surged strongly within her, "as you have always been."

She arched her back to catch the swell of him, the in-out slide of his inner shaft against the deep bundle of nerves inside and trembled with the nearness of the little-death she welcomed in the grip of his passion.

"Beloved," she dared to breathe once more before his tongue plundered her mouth and shifting again, he slipped a hand from beneath her back, and tearing from the kiss, roared a deep, vibrating a-tonal rush through her with the renewed bite of his feeding hand against her chest… an instant passed before she dissolved into pure sensation, shattering beneath him; flying apart on the Gift he gave her as he pulsed within her, the rush of him filling her body and spirit – as below, so above… and she a trembling crystal flame burning around the heart of him.

* * *

><p>He held her close, still clasped, his head resting against hers as he freed his feeding hand from between them, to stroke the back of his fingers over her cheek, feeling the rapid beat of her heart against his chest… his own heart still racing, his breathing ragged and trembling still.<p>

"My Isla," he murmured, "look at me."

Her eyes flicked up to his, then fell before she looked up again and finally held his gaze. She freed one hand, and raised the fingertips of it to rest against the apex of his shoulder. He shook his head briefly, and reaching for that hand brought the tips of her fingers to cover his heart.

"Your mother bore you as she helped to save the life of our Revered Matron. I brought you into our world, watched you grow and guarded you through life… I will not _ever_ willingly watch life leave you." He told her softly. "Do not ever take such risk again as you took today."

"She is our Queen," she frowned, "and Primary, she—"

_{she is a fool grown arrogant with self-importance; with little care for what it means or the sacrifices we must make to survive}_

He moved to cradle her head in his hands, and brushed his lips softly against hers. "Do not _ever_ take such risks again."

* * *

><p>"Unscheduled offworld activation!"<p>

Both McKay and Ronon looked up at each other as the alarms punctuated by Chuck's voice rolled over the city wide comm. It was late – well past base standard midnight, and the only reason Ronon wasn't still in the infirmary was that Beckett had thrown him out, insisting on his getting some sleep; insisting he would be no good for the 'poor wee lamb', as he called Chaya, if he didn't rest himself.

He came directly to the mess and found McKay, eyes red rimmed, sitting staring into the bottom of an empty coffee cup.

"It couldn't…" McKay was the first to break the suddenly tense silence. "Could it?"

A second later running feet brought the arrival of a breathless SO, who skidded to a halt beside their table.

"It's Colonel Sheppard," he said simply.

In his haste to get to his feet, Ronon overturned the chair, and not waiting to see if McKay followed him or not, raced toward the Gate Room, determined to be there to meet Sheppard as he came through the Gate.

"Lower the shield!" he ordered as he skidded to a halt between two marines, each holding weapons pointing at the still shielded Gate.

"My orders are—"

"To hell with orders," Ronon spat, "I'll take full responsibility. Lower the damn shield. He could be hurt. He could be—"

The shield hissed out of existence, and yet the event horizon remained conspicuously empty.

"Come on, Sheppard… come on," he murmured.

McKay almost ran into him, looking expectantly at the Gate. His face creased into a frown when seconds later they were both still waiting for the man to step through the event horizon.

"Something's wrong," McKay announced.

"Whatever led you to that conclusion?" Ronon asked sarcastically, just as a ripple broke the surface of the otherwise placid shimmering pool, quickly followed by Sheppard's stumbling, shivering form. Ronon caught him before he hit the floor.

Still shivering, Sheppard opened his eyes, and a faint, almost drunken smile crossed his lips.

"Hey, Ronon," he said between his chattering teeth, "Did you miss me?"

* * *

><p>His head ached. His chest felt as if there were an elephant or two sitting on it, and his mouth felt like the arse end of a Saharan sandstorm had blown through it, but at least – and thank heavens for small mercies – he could once again feel the familiar soft touch of the city against his psyche.<p>

He opened his eyes slowly, and looked across the infirmary to where Doctor Beckett was giving soft instructions to several of his orderlies. The doctor smiled as soon as he noticed Sheppard was awake, and hurriedly sent the orderlies on their way.

"Hey," Sheppard said softly as Carson came to his side. "Please tell me you're not going to confine me to the infirmary."

A rush of relief sped through him as Beckett shook his head. "Far from it," he said, "I want y'out there as soon as possible, before they make Hollick a permanent fixture."

"Hollick?" Sheppard frowned in confusion.

"Aye," Carson said, reaching for the curtain to draw it around the bed. "They made him acting military commander, until you're fit for duty."

"I'm fine," Sheppard said, levering himself up, intending to get out of the bed that instant and he frowned as Beckett raised a hand to halt him.

"I know y'are," he said, "but that's no why I drew the curtain just now. There's something I want to talk t'ye about, and I don't want it common knowledge. Atlantis has enough issues going on without another to complicate anything any more."

"Carson," Sheppard ran his hand through his hair, feeling much in need of a shower, "What are you talking about? To do with me?"

"No, you're fine. You probably feel like crap because that's what withdrawal from massive doses of Wraith enzyme will do to ye, but—"

"Todd… healed me," Sheppard explained haltingly, running a hand uncomfortably across his chest where the tenderness still puckered almost painfully as the new skin grew rapidly to cover the feeding mark – marks, he corrected himself – "so did one of the queens."

Beckett nodded and said, "The scan we took revealed traces of recent and rapidly healed injuries. I assumed it must ha' been something like that. But that's not what I need to talk to you about."

"What then?" Sheppard frowned again, feeling a certain cold trepidation settling into his nerves.

"That woman you sent back with AR-3, the worshipper," Carson said.

"What about her?" Sheppard's confused frown deepened.

"Aside from the fact that Atlantis seems to like her, you mean?" Carson asked.

"She has the gene?" Sheppard's confusion turned to surprise, and he sat up still further. "A gene carrier in the Pegasus Galaxy?"

"Oh, it's a wee bit more than that, I'm afraid," Carson said, his voice low, urgent. "And I haven't told anybody, and I don't intend to tell anybody except you what I've discovered, not unless I absolutely _have_ no choice. The last thing we need right now is Woolsey going poking around our guest and pissing her off.

"You're not filling me with confidence here, Carson," Sheppard said. "What's going on? If she doesn't have the ATA gene, then wh—"

"Oh, she _does_ have the ATA gene… hell, she _is_ the ATA gene!"

"Are you trying to tell me what I _think_ you're trying to tell me?" Sheppard said, and at once he understood the position that Carson, indeed all of them, were in if what he now suspected was true happened to be what the doctor was trying to tell him.

"She's an Ancient, John," Carson leaned close and all but whispered the words. "I don't know how. I don't know anything beyond the fact that the young lady, currently 'locked' away in guest quarters on the east pier, is a one hundred percent, pure blooded Ancient and that if she didn't _want_ to be locked in guest quarters, there wouldn't be a damn thing any of us could do about it. Currently, she is the single most dangerous organism within the city."

"Crap," hissed Sheppard, realising at once the implications of what Carson was saying.

"I also know she's terrified of something," Carson added a beat later, "and because of it, she doesn't at all want to be here."

* * *

><p>Guilt gnawed at Keller as she hurried to keep up with the Wraith sub-commander that led her through the corridors of the Hive. Whichever way she considered it, she had betrayed Ayatesha and – knowing that Michael, or at least his hybrid army, were descending on the planet – had potentially left her to die.<p>

_"...Ma'asaalama. Yallah,"_

_Then Ayatesha turned to face the door. Behind her, Jennifer slipped her hand into the pocket of her vest, closing her fingers around the syringe, already filled with a strong sedative and flicked off the cap, and before she could change her mind, wrapped first her free arm, and then the one containing the syringe around the Egyptian doctor's slender frame._

_Ayatesha didn't even fight her. The moment was over in a second, and as the sedative took effect; as the other woman became a dead weight in her embrace, Keller lowered her as gently as she could to the floor._

The drones flanking her came to an abrupt stop, and crossed their staff weapons in front of Keller, halting her forward motion at the entrance to the bridge. She blinked and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she would say; for what words could possibly convey the self-loathing, and bitter resentment she felt to once again be standing – helpless – before the creature that had taken her life and turned it on its head.

He felt her arrival even before his subordinate commander brushed politely at the edge of his psyche; felt the terrible pulse of life thrumming inside of her as if some kind of bell were pealing out the confirmation of a truth he had identified many weeks before.

Without turning he mentally dismissed the drones from her side, and then addressed her. His tone was mild. He intended to give nothing away.

"It is either great courage or great foolishness that has led you to seek me out, Jennifer Keller," he said.

"Enough," she snapped, and he could not miss the angry rejection of his overture toward her in the tone of her voice. It did not entirely surprise him. Nor did it trouble him in the slightest part. She would come to see matters according to his will. He turned to face her, regarding her with a cool curiosity written on his face.

"I didn't come here to play games, Todd," she said, and the hard tone in her voice wavered, as she finished. "I need your help."

He let the moment of silence following her admission linger and tipped his head to one side, appraising her.

"Indeed," he said at length, and then with an upward nod to his subordinate commander, instructed him quietly, but firm and cock-sure, "Take her to her quarters."

_Fin_


End file.
